It’s amazing that with all the advancements in dentistry over the past 100 years, cavity detection has remained virtually unchanged in conventional dentistry. A dental hygienist pokes around with a pick in the grooves of the teeth after cleaning to see if it “sticks”.
Then, a dentist follows up to check these suspect areas and examines a recent set of dental x-rays to confirm the presence of caries. After that, an appointment is made to drill and fill the decayed areas (hopefully not with silver mercury amalgams!).
It is time to relegate this outdated technique to the rubbish pile where it belongs!
At long last, safe cavity detection with no x-rays and no drilling is now possible using the breakthrough device DIAGNOdent.
DIAGNOdent: Modern Device for the Informed Patient
For parents, the ability to now detect and treat cavities without drilling before they cause decay is important. This avoids the repeated exposure of young children’s developing brains to dental x-rays. Even some so-called natural dentists still require a set of bitewings every six months and a full set annually! Sorry, but that is not how a truly holistic and biological dentist practices dentistry!
Dental X-Ray Myths
Attempting to decline x-rays, reduce the frequency of when they are taken or even just request a thyroid guard risks the ire of your dentist. Most don’t like to admit that x-rays are in fact a big revenue stream. Your reluctance to do exactly as they say makes them defensive. So, they throw a condescending line your way when you try to opt-out such as, “Did you know that a banana has more radiation than a set of digital x-rays?”. Or another favorite, “Walking to your car exposes you to more radiation than dental x-rays.”
While it is true that digital x-rays expose a patient to 70% or so less radiation than conventional x-rays, they are still not without risk. If they were, why does the x-ray tech leave the room when they are being taken? WebMD and the journal Cancer warn that frequent dental x-rays are a risk factor for a common form of brain cancer. (1)
This is not a surprise considering that ionizing radiation exposure is cumulative over a lifetime. You can never “undo” it. Hence, the only smart approach, especially for children with hopefully many decades to live, is to avoid them whenever and wherever possible.
Informed parents know the difference between the different types of radiation on the vast electromagnetic spectrum. The ionizing wavelengths that pass through your skin to allow an internal picture of your teeth and bones are the damaging ones. Radiation from the sun that warms your skin (far and near infrared waves) and induces Vitamin D production (UVB) is necessary to health!
Digital Cavity Detection Using Lasers
This is where the DIAGNOdent comes in.
This groundbreaking device is the epitome of modern, evidence-based cavity detection using lasers instead of carcinogenic radiation. It can be operated by a dental hygienist or a dentist with consistent results. DIAGNOdent is comfortable for the patient – even very young children. It only requires a few short minutes and no anesthesia (not even laughing gas) to scan the entire mouth for cavities and decay.
DIAGNOdent uses a precise laser scanning system to scour the teeth while sending out an audio signal and a digital read-out for the dentist. The laser measures the fluorescence within each tooth’s structure, which allows the dentist to quickly identify where there may be cavities developing in the small spaces between, on, and around teeth and gums.
Fluoride Treatments
Using DIAGNOdent to identify problem spots is particularly important for patients who have had fluoride treatments in the past. It is commonly known in the health community that toxic fluoride therapy reduces children’s IQ. This includes fluoridated water, by the way!
What isn’t commonly known is that fluoride can also cause many cavities to never make it to the tooth’s surface. Toxic fluoride treatments from conventional dentists artificially harden the enamel. While this may seem positive at first, the internal tooth structure remains weak and acidic. The result is cavity-causing bacteria simply begin eating away at the tooth from the inside out instead! The DIAGNOdent laser helps locate these small areas of decay that the old probe and x-ray approach would miss until a far larger problem becomes evident. Crowns and root canals anyone?
No More “He Said, She Said” Cavity Diagnostics
You know how one dentist might say you need 6 cavities filled and then another dentist down the street will say you have no cavities at all?
This is a maddening experience and happens more often than you might think for those smart enough to get a second opinion when a suggested dental treatment plan seems “off”.
With the DIAGNOdent, lasers accurately and consistently detect the presence of cavity-causing bacteria in the grooves of your teeth. Most tooth decay starts in these areas. No cringe-inducing probes or x-rays necessary.
And, the readings from the device are always the same no matter who operates it!
Dental Ozone
If the DIAGNOdent pinpoints areas of your teeth where cavity-causing bacteria have initiated an infection, what then?
The solution at that point is to kill the pathogenic bacteria using ozone therapy. This way, no cavity is ever formed, so no drilling of the tooth is necessary! Even better, the ozone eliminates the acid environment in the tooth. This is a biological state that cavity-causing bacteria thrive in. This way, they don’t just grow right back after treatment.
Here’s how it works according to one dentist who has been using dental ozone for 6 years:
Cavities develop as the environment below the surface of the tooth becomes acidic. Ozone not only kills the acid-making bacteria, it also neutralizes their acidic waste. This creates a new environment that is hostile to the bad streps and lactobacilli that love the acid niche. A new environment allows healthier bacteria to replace the bad ones. If we just kill off the bacteria, they’re back in weeks. But if we get rid of their acid niche, they are gone for two to three months. Ozone treatments at this interval just might keep teeth decay-free indefinitely! (2)
Reversing Cavities?
I’ve written before about how I had success multiple times reversing early cavities in my own children using nutrient-dense traditional foods. Using the DIAGNOdent and ozone therapy can actually encourage this process as well where nutritional therapy has failed. Poor nutrient absorption from compromised gut function is the likely cause when this happens. You aren’t what you eat; you are what you digest!
Once the DIAGNOdent identifies trouble spots and the ozone therapy eliminates the cavity-causing bacteria and the acid environment in which they thrive, positive biochemical changes begin within the affected teeth. Minerals can once again flow back into the tooth from the saliva. The result is hardening of the enamel keeping the tooth healthy and decay-free.
Your holistic dentist can determine the best protocol going forward to keep the teeth this way. This will likely include follow-up ozone treatments and perhaps the use of remineralizing toothpaste or therapeutic solutions that soak into the teeth.
If your dentist currently does not offer digital cavity detection as an option, make your wishes known! If you encounter pushback, don’t hesitate to change dentists if necessary. Customers demanding safe, nontoxic methods for preventing cavities and harmlessly detecting their presence is critical for this treatment to gain traction and go mainstream beyond the small number of holistic dental offices that currently use it.
I get many requests about who I recommend as a truly holistic dentist. If you are looking for one, I recommend Dr. Carlo Litano of Natural-Smiles.com – (727) 300-0044. He sees young children as well as adults. Be sure to tell Dr. Litano that Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist sent you and get 10% off your first visit!
Thanks, Sarah! I’ve been wondering about this for a while and haven’t been happy with the push for x-rays.
I started seeing a dentist that practices Biomimetic dentistry a year ago (you can google it, but basically it’s a way of repairing the tooth that more closely imitates the actual tooth). He uses a laser to detect cavities, but I don’t think it’s the same thing you talk about here. It’s a pen-like device that he points directly at each tooth. It gives a read-out of numbers – anything 20 and below is good, but anything between 20 and 30 is a possible cavity, and then and the higher the number goes, the deeper the decay. He not only used it to detect cavities, but he also used it when he was filling a couple of cavities to monitor how much more he had to drill out. He also used Ozone before he filled the cavity.
I found my dentist through a Biomimetic Dentistry website. There was only one in my city.
My current hygienist said that x-rays are still necessary to detect any disease that might be starting at the bone level…don’t know if that’s really true, or if she’s working off a false set of beliefs. But your article has given me pause about letting them take x-rays next time.
Ten years ago my dental hygienist cautioned me against the DIAGNOdent because it sometimes showed shadows that dentists mistook for being cavities, so I’ve always been cautious of it’s use. Though I don’t know how much the technology has improved in the last ten years so maybe it’s much more accurate now.
My daughter’s exam shows 2 pits on both her lower molars (facing cheeks). These are the only caries she’s ever had. We’ve been following Ramiel’s book on curing tooth decay and also under care by Joette Calabrese for a few years now. A year passed since the carie detection and her xray show her pits have deepened. Now there is an urgency to drill and fill before it reaches the pulp. Of course I’m very frightened for her. Her dentist is as closest to being holistic as offered in Rochester, NY. Of course I got a 2nd consult with another holistic dental office and the conclusion is the same. Her drill and fill is scheduled for 3/20. I’ve been hoping for another approach and your article couldn’t have been posted at a better time. We are intending to move to Florida sometime this year….can you provide your dental office contact info? I would like to get a third opinion before I make this important decision for my 8 year old. Thank you.
I don’t post names and contact info on this site. You can email me if you like.
Sarah,
Your article made me think of the use of x-rays for chiropractic. Do you know whether there are any advances in that area that would reduce or remove the “need” for chiropractic x-rays? It seems like plenty of chiropractors are doing a lot right, with regarding to correcting our spines and making good dietary and health recommendations generally, but it seems that all of them are way overusing x-rays.
Thanks for this great article!
In 25 years of our family going to the chiro (3 different doctors), we’ve only ever gotten x-rays ONCE and that was when my son hurt his shoulder badly during a sporting event. Unless there is an injury … there is no need for them in my experience. If yours is wanting x-rays with no injury, I would switch to another chiro. Some doctors even if alternative, are x-ray happy. You need to avoid those doctors and find one that is more conservative in treatment approach.
Remember only a few decades ago when OBs used to x-ray every pregnant woman’s pelvis to see if “there was enough room” for the baby to be born vaginally. It turned out to be a total farce as women who were told that “there wasn’t enough room” birthed babies just fine anyway and women told “there is plenty of room” needed C-sections. Think of how many babies were unnecessarily zapped with all that ionizing radiation as fetuses??? All the while the OBs are telling women that “this x-ray is perfectly safe”. Well, turns out it was not safe. Not at all! Could this be part of the reason for the cancer epidemic of middle aged folks? I have no doubt it is a contributing factor (certainly there are plenty of other reasons too).
Glad my Mom used her common sense and found an OB that let her opt out of this unnecessary treatment. She didn’t need a double blind, placebo controlled study to tell her what was obvious .. x-rays and pregnant bellies don’t mix! It always pays to get a second opinion if you are in doubt about whether a potentially damaging exposure to radiation is actually truly needed. Much of the time, it is not!
This study suggests it’s a good additional tool for evaluation but shouldn’t be used as a stand alone.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282000/#!po=28.9474
Thanks for this! I don’t think any dentist would use it as a diagnostic tool without a proper exam though!
For many years I used the diagnodent in my dental practice to assist in the diagnosis of caries but not the sole measure of a cavity. A few years back I switched to the SPECTRA by Air Techniques. I found the SPECTRA to be more accurate in my practice, although the diagnodent is helpful too. Your readers may want to check out the SPECTRA cavity detection system also. Thanks for all of the research you do I often refer patients to your website! I would also highly recommend THE DENTAL DIET book, by Dr. Stephen Lin
Thank you for the input Dr. Engler! I appreciate you adding the practical angle from a dentist actually using the device.
The difficult part of getting good dental care is finding an ethical dentist – I’ve had too many experiences with dentists’finding decay’that a second opinion dentist didn’t find – is the treatment dentists recommend necessary and beneficial or primarily to enrich the dentist??
Thanks for the great information you provide. I am very interested in utilizing this option. Can you share links to:
1. locator of dentists using this technology
2. any clinical data supporting it
I couldn’t find a list anywhere of dentists using this particular technology. If you look under available lists for holistic dentists in your area online and then start calling around, you should find an office fairly quickly without driving all over town.
Have you heard of sdf. Silver diamine fluoride. I even have crunchy friends buying and using this on their own kids to get rid of very small beginner cavities. I’d be interested if you did an article on this. Thanks.
I wouldn’t use ANYTHING with fluoride in it especially with children. Fluoride exposure lowers IQ. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/harvard-study-confirms-lowered-iq-in-children-exposed-to-fluoride/
As a young adult, I refused x-rays. My dentist therefore used… a flashlight. Just one of those slim penlight style flashlights. He could shine it through my teeth, and look for decay without x-rays.
What a smart and creative dentist! Never heard of this before.
I’m quite familiar with the Diagnodent. 12 years ago, I visited a dentist who used the machine and told me I needed 20 fillings! Somehow I had made it 34 years (at the time) without a single cavity or filling. I was quite obviously very suspicious and asked for copies of my dental X-rays to get a 2nd opinion. I went to a different dentist who examined me and didn’t see any cavities. I gave him the X-rays. He then found 2 suspicious areas and gave me 2 fillings (despite having no problems with said teeth). He then shared the X-rays with a colleague at our state dental school, who also couldn’t find the elusive 18 cavities. When this professor found that a Diagnodent was used, his only comment was they aren’t always calibrated correctly and they are only as good as the user. I wouldn’t trust any dentist who uses this as the sole means to diagnosis, any more than I trust a doctor to tell me vaccines are harmless. (And furthermore, I still only have those 2 fillings, which I regret getting. My teeth probably would have healed given enough time and nutrition.)
12 years ago is a very long time! The iPhone didn’t even exist then!
I would venture to suggest that laser cavity detection has come a long way in the last decade. These devices are used more for prevention today to avoid any drilling and filling or hormone disrupting estrogenic sealants. For those of us that avoid dental x-rays unless absolutely necessary in order to preserve the health of our thyroid and for other reasons, this is an excellent option. My MD Dad never let dentists take a full set of x-rays on his kids more often than once every 10 years (bitewings every 5 years). I’ve done the same with my children. If there was a problem with a tooth, only a single x-ray of that one tooth was permitted. Amazing how people even doctors are so flippant about the dangers of carcinogenic, cumulative radiation exposure anymore. CT scans are prescribed at the drop of a hat like there is no serious downside even for young children. Makes no sense to me!