Intraoral camera

Intraoral cameras are tiny digital cameras that fit comfortably in your mouth and enable the dentist to show the patient an enlarged image of an individual tooth or an entire smile on a computer screen. The camera is located in the tip of the intraoral wand and transmits real-time video for the patient and dentist to review.

With the touch of a tiny, pen shaped instrument, both the patient and the dentist see an enlargement of every detail in the mouth without effort, pain or X-rays as it appears on a computer monitor screen. The technology of intraoral cameras is one of the most important and useful tools to incorporate into the dental office. 

During diagnosis, the intraoral camera helps with clearly defined images that show details that may be missed by standard mirror examinations. It can also be an educational tool, allowing views of the inside of a mouth to confront problems or review procedures as they progress. Seeing your dental condition big and close up for the first time can be surprising. You may never have realized the true condition of your teeth. This camera is an important aspect of patients’ dental care. Intraoral technology can help the patient and the dentist uncover problems before they become serious. This is a crucial part of conservative and preventative dental treatment. This saves money, and it may save teeth! For example, it is easy to see cracks in old amalgam fillings which are not visible with xrays. More importantly, it allows the patient to view this and other types of problems in detail and immediately realize that the condition needs to be corrected before it becomes worse.

It can also show the level of personal oral care that a patient has used. With the intraoral camera, any areas that may have been missed during brushing or flossing are much easier to see than with a mirror and the naked eye. When conditions such as periodontal problems are caught in their earliest stages, less invasive corrective treatment is possible. It easily and accurately allows the doctor to monitor and enhance what cannot be seen with the naked eye.

At Bright Smile Dental and Orthodontic Center, our dentists do a complete examination on all new patients using the intraoral camera. We provide ‘oral tours’ so our patients can see the wear of their teeth, margins of existing restorations, abfractions, gingival recession, and even calculus deposits. After all, “seeing is believing!”