In short: a dental X-ray shows the two-thirds of your tooth that an examination cannot see — between the teeth, under fillings, and below the gum. We use digital radiography on site, which gives an image in seconds at a small fraction of the radiation of old film X-rays.
Why an examination alone is not enough
Looking in your mouth shows the outer surfaces of the crowns of the teeth. It does not show:
- Decay between teeth, where surfaces touch. This is where a large share of adult cavities start, and they are invisible until they are big.
- Decay under an existing filling or crown.
- The bone level around each tooth — the measure of gum disease that actually matters.
- Infection at a root tip, which appears as a dark shadow long before it causes swelling.
- Unerupted or impacted teeth, including wisdom teeth and children’s permanent teeth.
- Cysts, root fractures and resorption.
- The number and shape of root canals before a root canal treatment.
Treating without this information is guesswork. It is why we take an X-ray before a root canal, an extraction or an implant, and why they matter at routine check-ups too.
The types we take
Intraoral periapical (IOPA)
A small sensor placed beside one or two teeth showing the whole tooth from crown to root tip and the surrounding bone. This is the workhorse — used for diagnosing a painful tooth, planning and checking root canals, and assessing an individual tooth before extraction.
Bitewing
You bite on a tab and the image captures the crowns of the upper and lower back teeth together. It is the best view for finding decay between back teeth and for checking bone levels. Taken periodically at check-ups.
Panoramic (OPG)
A single wide image of both jaws, all the teeth, the jaw joints and the sinuses, taken by a machine that rotates around your head. Used for wisdom tooth assessment, orthodontic planning, implant planning, and getting an overall picture for a new patient with a complicated history.
Is the radiation a concern?
It is a fair question and it deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance.
Dental X-rays are among the lowest-dose radiographic examinations in medicine. A single digital intraoral X-ray delivers a dose broadly comparable to the natural background radiation you absorb from the environment over about a day, simply from living. A panoramic image is higher than that but still very low. Digital sensors need substantially less radiation than the film they replaced — one of the main reasons we use them.
That said, the principle we work to is that no X-ray should be taken without a clinical reason. We do not take routine images on a fixed schedule regardless of need. We use a lead apron with thyroid collar, we collimate the beam to the area of interest, and we take the minimum number of views that will answer the question.
If you are pregnant or think you might be, tell us. Dental X-rays with proper shielding are considered safe during pregnancy where genuinely necessary, but we will postpone anything non-urgent to after delivery as a matter of course.
What the appointment involves
There is nothing to prepare for. You remove earrings, nose rings and any removable denture, put on the lead apron, and either hold or bite gently on the sensor. The exposure lasts a fraction of a second and is completely painless. The image appears on the screen immediately.
Because it is digital, we can enlarge and adjust the image and — this matters more than it sounds — show it to you on screen and explain what we are looking at. You should be able to see the cavity or the shadow we are describing rather than take our word for it. Ask us to show you.
Keeping your images
Digital X-rays are stored in your record, which means we can compare this year’s image against last year’s and see whether a small shadow is changing. That comparison over time is often more informative than any single image. If you are moving city or seeing a specialist, ask us for a copy of your images — you are entitled to them and it saves you being re-X-rayed unnecessarily.
Digital dental X-rays in Jabalpur
Digital radiography is available on site at our Madan Mahal clinic, so diagnosis happens in the same visit rather than requiring a trip to a separate imaging centre and a second appointment. If you have recent X-rays from another clinic, bring them — we would rather use those than take new ones.