When you sit in your dentist's office chair, do you ever feel confused? Do you hear the dentist and staff talk, but don't understand what they're saying? Dental terminology is almost your own language, with many unique terms and numbers released by professionals. You want to understand what they say about your teeth, right? Here's a guide to understanding dental jargon, especially what the numbers discussed mean. When you're sitting in the dentist's chair, the last thing you expect is to hear the word quadrant. When dental staff use this term, they don't talk about equations or formulas. It's an expression about the parts of the mouth.
Dentists divide the inside of the mouth into four sections or quadrants. The upper parts of the mouth are the first two quadrants, while the lower parts are the third and fourth. Therefore, the upper right of the inside of the mouth is quadrant one (that is the right side), while the upper left is quadrant two. The background is a little more confusing.
While the upper part numbers the right side first, it is the opposite for the lower part. The lower left is quadrant three and the lower right is quadrant four. From the dentist's perspective, they look up and down inside your mouth. It is easier to list quadrants so that the section under quadrant two is quadrant three. Gum disease is one of the most common problems dentists see.
They have developed abbreviated terminology to define gum health. One of the measures they will use to measure the gums is the space between the gum pocket and the nearby tooth. Each of your teeth will receive a number for its space between the gums. Dentists measure this distance in millimeters. As a patient, you'll want to hear a smaller number.
This means that you have a smaller space between the tooth and the gum, a sign that your mouth is healthy. A higher number indicates that you have gum problems, such as plaque and tartar buildup. When your distance indicates that your gums are 1 to 3 millimeters in diameter, what they really say is that you have healthy gums. It's a sign that you brush and floss regularly, usually taking great care of your teeth. Patients with this type of space between their teeth and gums are likely to have spent some time between dental cleanings.
Inflammation occurs naturally in such situations. Your dentist may even warn you that you are at the first signs of periodontal disease or possible bone loss. You will probably have a checkup to see if your gums bleed easily. A gum number of five millimeters or more is a problem. Your dentist will almost certainly tell you to get a deep clean.
The hope is that cleaning will remove buildup between the tooth and the gum. Other possible causes include tooth breakage or gum loss. In extreme situations, a person with this level of buildup will need corrective surgery, although the dentist will generally prefer to try minor treatments first. The first thing to keep in mind is that dentists use a numbering system. So the right upper teeth start with the number “1” (i.e., You May Not Have All These Teeth). For example, tooth 48 is a wisdom tooth, one that dentists often remove to improve the overall health of the mouth. The upper half of the mouth has lower numbers.
These are teeth 11-17 and 21-27 on the dental chart. However, the numbering system has a second purpose. It also identifies what type of tooth is being discussed. With this information, dentists can quickly note which teeth have problems that need correction. As an example, a chip in the second molar in quadrant four would be shown as tooth 47 on the graph.
Wisdom teeth are the eighth tooth in each quadrant, so they are numbers 18, 28, 38 and 48 respectively. If you listen to your dentist, you'll learn a lot about the current state of your dental hygiene. He has a very special interest in dental implants, Invisalign, six-month smiles, cosmetic dentistry, smile changes, complicated restorative cases, management of stress-related dental problems (tooth wear, headaches) and difficult cosmetic cases. If you are performing cosmetic dentistry with veneers, you will generally want to highlight the most visible part: teeth numbers 6-11 on top and 22-26 on bottom. We recommend taking children to see their dentist as soon as their teeth begin to erupt as babies; this can help them get used to being in a dental environment and give your dentist an opportunity to monitor baby teeth development as it occurs while keeping an eye out for any signs of gum disease. Remember: this table of tooth numbers is from a dentist's point of view or someone who is looking at...
