what X-rays of my teeth at the dentist show and why it has to be radioactive and what the heavy apron does
In: Physics
Wait your dentists put aprons on you when getting an X-ray?
Usually medical professionals are the only people who wear these when dealing with X-rays because they have to use this stuff daily so it’s not like getting a one off X-ray every year or two, it’s getting 300 X-rays a year, so the risk and need for the apron is much greater
To clarify a potential source of confusion:
* Radiation are types of particles/waves. There are many different kinds. X-rays are a type of radiation (as are alpha particles, beta particles, infrared waves, microwave radiation, visible light, radio waves, etc.). Most of the time when people talk about “radiation” popularly they mean “ionizing radiation,” which is the kind of radiation that can cause internal damage to cells by changing their chemistry. X-ray radiation is a kind of ionizing radiation. (Visible light, infrared, microwaves, and radio waves are not ionizing radiation.)
* Radioactive means a substance that has atoms which decay and release radiation. Nuclear waste is radioactive — it is constantly releasing different kinds of radiation.
* Dental X-rays are not produced by radioactive substances. They are produced by an X-ray tube, which is basically a little sealed vacuum tube where electrons are shot into a tungsten target, and the result of that is the production of X-rays (and heat).
So when people say that X-rays are not radioactive, that is what they mean. X-rays are radiation, radiation itself cannot be radioactive, and X-ray radiation is not produced through radioactivity, but is created directly through a different kind of reaction.
Different colors of light have different wavelengths: blue is a shorter wavelength than red. But you can have longer wavelengths than we can see (so we don’t call them light anymore cause we don’t see them) but there’s infra red and radio waves that are longer than what we can see. And there are wavelengths that are shorter than what we can see (ultra violet, x-rays, gamma rays).
Most objects we interact with light doesn’t travel through you cannot see through the wall in front of you or your hand. There are some things that light can pass through like glass. And there are somethings where some wavelengths of light pass through but others do not (something that is clear but has a color tint to it is blocking some wavelengths and letting the ones of the color you see through).
X-Rays with their shorter wavelengths pass through a lot more things. And if we measure how much x-ray comes through any given area we get an idea of the different densities of the object. We can see if a tooth is nice and solid or if there are thinning areas inside them (cavities, etc). We can also see what the tooth looks like below your gums which are covering up a lot of the tooth so we can tell if anything is wrong in areas we cannot see.
The problem with x-rays is the wavelengths are so short they’re about the size of atoms and the bonds inside chemical molecules. With a lot of exposure, x-rays can do bad things like break down the bonds inside the DNA in your cells. That is bad. So they limit the dose and direct it just where it is needed. To avoid risk to your important organs, they put an apron made of lead to cut down on the risk of messing up the DNA in your important organs and especially avoiding hitting your reproductive organs where breaking down the DNA could cause problems if you try to have kids later. If the DNA gets messed up all kinds of bad things can happen… the most common is cancer. That said most newer X-ray machines in dentist offices are designed to use as low an amount of x-rays as possible and they’re designed to focus the beam very tightly so no stray xrays go else where, so the apron might not be as important as it was 40 years ago.
But X-rays give a lot of valuable information and if treated carefully and safely, a little x-ray radiation doesn’t pose much of a risk… but they do everything they can to keep the risk as low as possible. If someone just took an x-ray and started trying to see all the different parts inside of their body… they would probably give themselves so much of a dosage that they would have a much higher risk of causing damage or starting cancer growth.
It isn’t exactly radioactive like uranium or plutonium, but it is “ionizing radiation”
In addition to what the others are saying, next time you’re at the dentist it’s OK to ask them to show you the X-ray and explain what they’re looking at.
X-rays penetrate the soft-tissues of the body but not the denser bones. This allows the dentist to see in detail, the shape of your teeth and jawbones. It has to be radioactive because radiation is just high-energy particles traveling at certain frequencies, which is the whole purpose of the x-ray. The heavy apron is lined with lead, which is dense enough to stop most of the x-rays from penetrating it. The goal is to reduce the amount of radiation your body is exposed to outside of the area where the x-ray is taken. Radiation causes damages cumulatively. The more radiation exposure, the more risks of complications.
X-rays penetrate the soft-tissues of the body but not the denser bones. This allows the dentist to see in detail, the shape of your teeth and jawbones. It has to be radioactive because radiation is just high-energy particles traveling at certain frequencies, which is the whole purpose of the x-ray. The heavy apron is lined with lead, which is dense enough to stop most of the x-rays from penetrating it. The goal is to reduce the amount of radiation your body is exposed to outside of the area where the x-ray is taken. Radiation causes damages cumulatively. The more radiation exposure, the more risks of complications.
What dentist are you visiting that doesn’t walk through everything shown in it? Also it’s the law in every county I’ve visited dentists, that they must provide you s copy of the X ray on request.
Radiation by itself is not what you think it is. That term does not automatically imply that something is bombarding you with harmful rays that screw up your genetics and give you cancer.
The dangerous type of radiation you’re thinking of that does harm to living organisms is called ionizing radiation. But there is another type: non-ionizing radiation. This type of radiation is either far less or not harmful to us at all.
Radiation in this context refers to wavelengths along the [electromagnetic spectrum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum#/media/File%3AEM_Spectrum_Properties_edit.svg)
See on the chart where it says “visible” ? That refers to visible light. Everything you see, you only see because radiating wavelengths are emitted from sources of light, which then bounce off of objects and enter your eyeballs. You are literally being bombarded with radiation at all times. Notice how radiowaves, X-rays, and even the often villified gamma rays are on there too.
All of these are examples of radiation. What makes them different are the wavelengths at which they radiate. Generally speaking, the shorter the wavelength, the more ionizing and harmful they are.
Now X-Rays are in fact a type of ionizing radiation. And although they’re right behind gamma rays, they’re not nearly as dangerous as gamma rays. Short, infrequent exposure to X-rays won’t really cause you any harm. Such as getting your bi-yearly dental visits. Constant exposure to X-rays, however, such as being the dentist taking the pictures literally every day, can cause you harm. So they leave the room.
The apron you wear is lined with lead, a metal that is very effective at blocking and reflecting ionizing radiation, preventing your body from absorbing any. Admittedly, I’m not sure how dangerous it would be for you to get your teeth X-ray’d without the apron, but it’s just better to be safe than sorry anyway.
The vest contains lead, which is one of the densest metals. Being dense, it has the ability to stop the X-rays from penetrating too far into it. So it provides shielding to protect your internal organs from the radiation.
The radiation is the X-rays themselves. X-rays are just very high-energy photons: the same particles that make up UV, visible light, infrared, and radio waves. But unlike those other forms of light, X-rays have high enough energy to penetrate through most of your body. Again, they usually don’t get stopped until they encounter something dense, like bone. If you want to image bone, you need to use something that isn’t blocked by the soft tissues in your body, and can pass right through to the bone. That’s also why raw X-ray images look like negatives. All the area with bone is dark (because it blocks the rays) and all the area with no bone is bright.
X-rays themselves aren’t “radioactive” per se, but they are what’s called ionizing radiation: they have enough energy to knock electrons off atoms. This can cause mutations to your cells that make you sick. It can also turn the atoms in your body into radioactive ones: unstable ones that decay (break up) into other types of atoms. That’s why we use the shielding to limit X-ray exposure to certain areas, and also limit the total amount of X-ray exposure per year.
X-Rays are a type of high energy electromagnetic radiation. The medical images that are called x-rays are so named because you use that type of radiation to take the images. X-rays are particularly good at taking images of bone and enamel underneath soft tissue like muscle. (Think of them as passing through soft tissue and fluorescing on the bones underneath so you can see an image of the bone without the tissue obscuring it.) It is this specific type of radiation that makes those images possible.
The lead apron at the dentist office is a precaution. Since x-rays cannot pass through lead, the apron prevents any possibility of your internal organs underneath from being exposed.
Dental x-rays show the dentist abnormalities in your teeth, roots, and jaws below the gumline. It also keeps track of all of your dental work like fillings, bridges, crowns and implants. Helping your dentist monitor your oral health.
In addition those x-ray records can be used by a medical examiner or forensic dentist to help identify a body that cannot be identified through standard means, since it is unlikely for any two mouths to have identical teeth with the same dental work in all the same places.
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