“How many dental x-rays are safe per year?”
I am a 20 year old male, last year I had about 5 scans done for my cavity. How many dental x-rays are safe per year?
3 Answers
As many as you need. The amount of radiation is the same as living in Denver for one month or flying from Chicago to Denver once per X-ray.
Your dentist generally will try and minimize the number of "scans" taken of you to the smallest number that provide the needed information. The amount of radiation from each image has dropped dramatically over the years.
Over the past twenty years the process for taking dental X-rays has evolved from an analog to a digital process which has reduced the amount of radiation to nearly zero. Of course it isn’t zero which provides a slight risk. The consideration is to the benefit from the X-rays. They allow a dentist to see inside the body and detect problems such as cavities, abscesses, cysts and cancer before the problems become advanced and difficult to treat. So the safe amount of X-rays for a person depends upon their individual likelihood of developing such problems. I would recommend finding a dentist whom you trust and allowing him to decide.
