What is a Dental X-ray?

Your dentist is telling you, you need to get an X-ray.
Why do you need an X-ray?
How they are going to take it?

Dental X-rays are to create picture of your tooth. These images are 2D. There are two types of dental radiographs: intra oral and extra oral.
Intra oral radiographs are taken inside of the moth and extra oral are taken outside of the mouth.
Intra oral radiographs taken while you are sitting on the dental chair. They can be film or digital. Films are placed inside the moth and after the X-ray exposure, they will be processed to view the picture.
The digital ones can be viewed immediately after the exposure on the computer screen.
Dentist will study these images and find out the details like, cavities, bone support, infection etc.
The extra oral X-rays are used to view impacted teeth, the jaw structure etc. They will not give finer details of the tooth as in the intra oral X-rays.
X-rays play an important role in diagnosing dental problems and to create treatment plans.

When you learn that your dental assistant is HARP certified, you may think, what is it!
HARP stands for Healing Arts Radiation Protection. There is not certification issued for each person. It just means that they successfully completed a Radiography curriculum  approved by HARP commission.