What are Dentists trying to protect when they put a lead apron on you for X-Rays?

Question

Today I went to the dentist and laughed when the dental tech put a lead apron on me for X-Rays. She asked what I was laughing at and I proceeded to inform her of my medical proceedures over the last four months.

I have had 41 external beam radiations over the last three months. Each treatment consisted of five different positions lasting 47 seconds each. That's 9,635 seconds or 160.58 minutes or 2.68 hours of radiation. I have radiation burns on my groin area that may heal with-in a year, at the rate they are now healing.

There is nothing a below my bellybutton that works the way it did 5 months ago. I had a vasectomy in 1972 so there's no problem there. My wife is 68 years old and I'm 67 and we don't want any children anyway.

Just what is it they are trying to protect?

Answer 1

lol, it is so true! Most of the public still freaks out when we are talking about medical radiation, because they are ill-informed. In the past, radiation doses were much higher. Today, the dose is very low. Improvements in the equipment, film, intensifying screens (which are not used in dental imaging, but in other x-ray studies) and even the developing process have lowered the doses by as much as ten times.

Have you seen some of the questions here on Y!Answers? There are many questions regarding x-ray exposure. I have patients on an almost daily basis who freak out if I need to get an additional image of their finger, for example......oh, the radiation! Or the mother who will not allow me to do the standard 3 view hand x-ray routine on her child who may have broken a bone, because of fears of radiation.....Even the experts say that the leaded aprons, used for dental imaging, are more for a patient's peace of mind than actual protection.

This is interesting, I thought. It is taken from a website which has questions answered by qualified medical personnel who are experts in radiation and it's effects:

"QUESTION: I recently had some dental x rays and the operator forgot to place the lead apron on me. Is this a problem?
ANSWER: Use of the lead apron to protect the patient undergoing dental radiographic examination was recommended some 50 years ago, when equipment was crude. This was because x-ray beams were not restricted to the area of clinical interest, beams were not filtered, and x-ray film was slower, causing radiation exposures 10 to 100 times higher than received today. With the current technology reducing radiation exposure significantly and the beam limited only to the area of interest, there is little or no measurable difference in whole-body dose whether a lead apron is used or not. The lead apron is no longer regarded as essential although some consider it a prudent practice, especially for pregnant and potentially pregnant females."

http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/dentalpatientissuesq&a.html

Another interesting note.....the effective dose of radiation due to a series of dental x-rays is about 1.5 mrem. For comparison, a 2 view chest x-ray is about 17 mrem, which equals the amount of radiation the average person gets in 10 days from background/cosmic sources. Oh, the horrors!

Answer 2

What the lead apron is trying to protect your body from is from any potential scattered xray beams that may strike past the mouth. In reality, there are little to no beams passing below your head/neck region. The main reason we have to use it is due to the law, which makes it mandatory for us to place it on our patients. The only thing that may be of any use on that lead apron is the neck/thryoid collar, but even that is stretching it. (In addition, the amount of radiation received during a dental xray exam is minimal compared to that of a medical exam. What you get for the bitewings and periapicals is nothing compared to like a chest xray) So for the most part what we're trying to protect is more of our medical-legal status than actual patient exposure to radiation.

Answer 3

It's an OSHA requirement but it really doesn't protect against anything since there's really nothing to protect from.
Modern dental xray machines give off less radiation then background solar radiation.
You get more laying in the sun for an afternoon.

Answer 4

hiya there! somebody in my Twitter feed shared this question so I got here to offer it a glance. i'm definitely loving the advice. i'm bookmarking and could be tweeting this to my followers!

Answer 5

Any further damage! .... to protect you against x-ray radiation.....