Anyone know anything about X-Ray radiation?

[BerryCheesecake]

Fingers crossed there is someone here who knows the answer to this.

Had my friend on the phone tonight worrying about a dental x-ray she had and hoping someone can offer some reassurance with the wise powers that MN members have :o

She said she had a dental x-ray at her dentist and that te machine revolved round her head. She said her hair was tied up and got caught up on her hair, meaning it was pointing for that side of her head/neck till the dentist came and freed her. She thinks it was probably 10 ish seconds. She also said she thought the machine was 'old' and is worried she has been exposed to extra radiation. I have never seen the machine so cannot vouch for whether it was old or not but if anyone has any words of reassurance I can pass onto her it would be greatly appreciated! :)

I'm no expert but an X ray machine at the dentist is but a camera that takes X-ray pictures.
It is 'active' for the length of time it takes to 'take the picture'
For the rest of the time it will have been 'inactive' just sitting there waiting for its next use.
I really do doubt that your friend had a mega dose just because her hair got caught in the machine.

Does she generally have health anxiety? The hair things happened to me, I imagine its v common.

She said it got caught while it was x-raying her and rotating round her head. So was likely to have been active when stuck in that one area iyswim.

She does left! how did you guess. I am usually able to calm her worries by telling her whatever she is worried about is normal/fine/safe etc but my knowledge of this was limited so needed MN's input :o

I can understand why your friend feels frightened. I think that HangingGarden is right.

The radiation dose for the X-ray will probably have been low. Different radiographers use different levels, but I reckon a dentist will stick to standard practice. In reality it will be fine. As I said doses are low and you would have to be exposed for longer than a few seconds. Imagine a chest X-ray or a series of X-rays on a trauma, this would be more that 10 seconds of exposure. The only reason radiographers wear the gear is because they are exposed to it all day every day.

Yes, the exposure is set according to the type of xray needed.

Even though the xray is intended to capture a particular view (ie the teeth), the beam can't be focussed that specifically. In other words, the only reason you get two pictures of your teeth is because two xray plates are put in the mouth. Just like, fi they xrayed your arm, but your other hand happened to be in the general area of the plate, you would get a picture of that too.

All that has happened, is that it hasn't rotated. It won't have been active for any longer.

Thanks for that. I shall let her know or if I'm feeling lazy just tell her to come and read the thread!

Put it this way, I used to work in job where I wore a lead apron to protect me from Xrays. I also wore a badge that monitored the dose of radiation I recieved.

I went to the dentist straight from work with said badge in my pocket, when I asked about it showing on my radiation badge I was told the dose was so low it would not show.

She has probably recieved less radiation than she would on a flight to Paris or eating a pineapple.

Thank you Sashh I shall pass that on!

Is eating pineapple radioactive? Goodness [bushock]

In the bad old days when we held awake animals for x-rays regularly we did as we should with our dosimeter badges on top of our lead aprons and despite daily exposure I never ever even got a dose that registered on my badge. Single dental x-ray with nice modern high frequency machine should be no problem at all. 10seconds is nothing we are still using exposures of up to 0.6 seconds multiple times a day every day still no reading.

Thank you :) I wcops use some of your answers to reassure her.