7. Materials

6. Gloves

5. Pain Relief

4. Prevention

3. Education

2. Replacing Teeth

1. Digital X-Rays

Digital radiographs may be the best thing to come into the dental field since, well, radiographs.  One reason is that they emit significantly less radiation- up to 80% less!  So that entire series of x-rays you get once every three to five years that gives your dentist valuable information about almost every aspect of your teeth and surrounding hard tissues isn’t too much different radiation-wise from sitting out in the sun for 5 minutes.

Another amazing thing about digital x-rays is that we can enlarge them, zoom in on a particular area of the x-ray, and adjust the contrast of the image. This not only makes diagnosing dental cavities and other infections easier for the well-trained practitioner, it also makes it fairly easy for the average dental patient to be able to see what the heck we’re talking about.