Introducing Our Patients To Some Of The Dental Tools That We Use

Have you ever wondered what the tray of tools that you see are used for?

Dental care continues to advance as new procedures become more widely used, and with it, new equipment. For all the new equipment such as 3D scanners that are introduced though, most patients will be more familiar with the tray of dental implements that are used by the dentist to perform most of the more regular treatments.

Some of these tools may look a little scary, especially to nervous patients. They are however, very effective for the purpose of restoring damaged and decayed teeth. Below, we take a look at some of the more commonly used tools at Alexandra Dental Care and indeed all other dentists around the UK.

The drill

Let’s start with the piece of equipment that is probably the most unpopular with many of our Ashby and Burton patients. The sound of a whirring drill can cause even the calmest patient to shudder. The fact is though, that the high pitched sound means that the drill is rotating at extremely high speeds, enabling the dentist to remove any decay both quickly and effectively. A quieter drill may also be slower and procedures would last that much longer.

The ‘needle’

Very close in unpopularity to the drill is the ‘needle’ that is used to administer your local anaesthetic. Without this, it wouldn’t be possible to carry out most procedures. We accept that having an injection into the gums isn’t always pleasant, though few patients realise that any discomfort usually comes when the anaesthetic meets the bloodstream and is not the result of the needle piercing the gums.

The mirror

Whilst having anything in your mouth that you don’t voluntarily put there yourself may not be ideal, the dental mirror is one of the tools that causes very little bother for patients of Alexandra Dental Care. It is used to check the teeth for small amounts of decays, magnifying the nooks and crannies and enabling us to see decay on parts of the tooth that would otherwise be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to detect.

Spoon excavator

“The what?” we can hear you say! This is a tool that has a flattened end which enables dentists to remove the softer decay from the cavity of a tooth by ‘scooping’ it out. It is entirely a manual tool with no whirring or vibrating sensations. It is often used prior to the drill being applied.

The dental probe

This piece of equipment will be very familiar to our patients. It is used even during a straightforward check up to see if there are any cavities forming in your teeth and also to measure the depth of any periodontal pockets.

So there we have it. Just a few of the more common tools of the dental trade revealed! We hope that this post helps you to understand a little more about what we do with these tools when we use them for your treatment.

We are always happy to explain any aspect of a procedure to our Ashby and Burton patients should they so wish, so please don’t hesitate to ask. If you need to make an appointment to see one of our team, please call Alexandra Dental Care on 01283 216347.

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