I am a difficult parent. It’s the only conclusion I can come to now that I’m in a stalemate with our dental office. Don’t get me wrong. Our dentist is very nice. I also like that she has an all-female staff. I think it’s important for our twin daughters to see that women can be anything they want to be, from dentist to receptionist.
The issue with has to do with X-rays. I strongly feel that our daughters shouldn’t be exposed to unnecessary X-rays, while her office believes we should have as many as the insurance company will pay for as part of our yearly benefits. I don’t think that money should be a determining factor in the number of X-rays my daughters receive. And I’m fairly certain her office wouldn’t be so keen to X-ray our girls if the insurance company didn’t willingly pay for the procedure.
Dental X-rays are a hot topic among parents. When you talk to other parents, you realize you aren’t alone with your concerns about the long-term effects of X-rays on children. While official organizations continue to state that dental X-rays for children are safe, many investigations are still being made and the jury’s still out.
In Radiation in the Dentist Chair, the author details the questionable safety research and excess radiation related to the cone-beam CT scanner. Unfortunately, I read this piece after allowing one of our girls to have the procedure done. We were barely inside the office when our dentist told me that she was worried about our daughter’s teeth coming in correctly. She said she had a new machine, the cone-beam CT scanner, that could show her what was going on with our daughter’s teeth, and our daughter was in the scanner before I had time to ask for time to do some research first.
Another New York Times article,
Radiation Worries for Children in Dentists’ Chairs, did little to calm my nerves. This piece outlines parents’ concerns about radiation and talks about alternative ways to take pictures of teeth. Once I realized so many other dentists were using methods that didn’t push any radiation into their patients, my concerns grew.Of course, as with so much medical research, conflicting information abounds. Most reputable medical organizations do not think X-rays should cause patients concern. Still, now that we know radiation exposure is cumulative over a lifetime, why expose our children to any more than is medically necessary?
I don’t know what the answer is for our girls. Perhaps we’re creating long-term dental problems by limiting the number of dental X-rays they receive each year. Or perhaps we’re saving them from unnecessary radiation exposure. It’s hard to say at this point. Yet given the uncertainty of the research, I am more comfortable limiting their X-ray exposure than I am allowing the dentist to X-ray at will. If only I could get our dentist’s staff on board with my thinking.
