Does Your Dentist Wear Loupes?
The importance of magnification in dentistry cannot be quantified. Dr. Tara wears magnification loupes and headlights. In fact, so do the hygienists and dental assistants at Hardin Advanced Dentistry. Dentists are essentially surgeons who operate on teeth at the millimeter level. When designing restorations for your mouth, they deal with an even smaller magnitude to ensure that bacteria do not break the seal of your new crown. This magnitude is a micron, one-thousandth of a millimeter! Does wearing loupes mean that your dentist is old and cannot see? Not at all! Wouldn’t you agree that someone with 20/20 vision can discern details much better under a microscope than with the naked eye? Why wouldn’t a dentist choose to wear magnification? A better question is why would a patient want someone working on their teeth who cannot see as well as the other dentist.
Consider these images. This is an example of a dentist’s field of view with no magnification and just the overhead light from above the chair. Sure, the molar tooth has a small silver filling, but not much else can be discerned.
As the magnification increases, so do the details in the tooth.
This next picture shows low magnification with some illumination. The dentist can see more, but not enough.
The last photo here shows what Dr. Tara is able to see with her loupes on (Dr. Tara even more than this!). With this amount of detail, our diagnoses can be more accurate and dentistry is simply more precise. There is no excess drilling, the cavities are taken out to the full extent, and the dentistry is more conservative.
What do you think your dentist should be able to see while working on your teeth? At Hardin Advanced Dentistry, we want our patients to have the best possible outcomes for their health and smiles, and seeing is the crucial first step. You can’t see what you can’t see…!
