CBCT: Cone Beam Computerized Tomography
What imaging technology do most dental practices use?
Most dental practices use 2D imaging technology to diagnose toothaches and tooth-related infections. Such machinery is considered to be standard-of-care: Any dental practice will have this technology on-site.
What is a CBCT 3D Imaging Machine?
This piece of machinery produces three-dimensional images of your teeth. This is an advanced piece of technology, and most practices don’t have it on-site. This piece of technology is what separates a standard care practice from a cutting edge practice.
What are the benefits of having 3D Imaging on-site?
Immediate Pain Relief
Sometimes patients go to a specialist to find out where their pain comes from, but the endodontist can’t resolve it because the pain isn’t localized. Then they send you home, telling you to wait until it’s localized. In the meantime, you have to suffer in pain until it becomes localized in one spot.
In many cases of non-localized pain, the 3D X-rays show where it’s coming from, allowing the doctors at Lakeside Endodontics to diagnose your pain immediately. This saves you time and suffering. Additionally, in difficult cases where 2D imaging can’t locate the canals, 3D imaging will detect them. That enables us to figure out where to drill and maintain your tooth’s integrity.
There’s also a situation called calcified canals, for example, where the root canals are so small that 2D imaging can’t depict them. 3D imaging ensures that the doctor finds all hidden canals. Sometimes root canals fail because the dentist didn’t find all the canals, or couldn’t negotiate all of them. 3D imaging will show you that the problem exists, allowing the doctors at Lakeside Endodontics to effectively treat the root canals.
Sometimes there are severe curves in root canals that don’t show up in 2D imaging. These cases are very difficult to negotiate. With 3D imaging, we can see exactly in which direction the curves are occurring. That way, we’ll know exactly where to drill, thus ensuring a successful treatment.
Fast Repairs
Many times when a root canal has to be retreated, a root canal specialist will use one invasive exploratory visit to diagnose the problem, and then treat the root canal during a separate visit. This one exploratory, invasive visit can often be bypassed with 3D imaging. We can avoid the problem altogether, since the 3D imaging shows us exactly what and where the problem is, which means diagnosis and treatment can happen in one day.
Alternatively, sometimes dentists put posts in teeth, but in the wrong direction. That makes a hole, or perforation, in your tooth, which could be excruciating and cause an infection in the bone below th