Can anyone recommend a dentist in the Asheville, NC area who will see patients WITHOUT mandatory x rays?

What’s your reason for refusing? Ever had an abess, an infected root nerve, a cavity beneath the gum line or between two teeth that had no space between them that went untreated becasue the dentist couldn’t see it?

Hell on earth.

Advanced breast and colon cancers are also no day at the beach.

A dentist could be sued for misdiagnosing if he/she didn’t do a thorough job. It’s also a matter of ethics. If you do a good job, it also includes looking at the root structure of the teeth. Hence x-rays. You’ve heard this before. Don’t get a bone fracture or any of the many problems that benefit by doing x-rays. Modern medicine uses many modes of treatment that it didn’t use to have. Come into the 20th century.

Although my question was NOT answered by the above responses, I will respond to the questions posed. I do not want dental x rays for myself, or my children, for several reasons.
1. They are associated with meningiomas in several studies. (see American Cancer Association’s article in “Cancer” journal for just one of many articles) I know correlation is not causation, but I prefer to err on the side of caution.
2. No dentist yet has been able to tell me what dire underlying disease I am at risk for, which will be detected by dental x rays. I am in excellent health, non smoker, excellent oral hygiene, and zero symptoms (such as toothache, jaw pain, etc) Sure, maybe there is a chance I have cancer in my jaw or gum—but what are the odds? Miniscule.
It would be like a GP saying to a person in excellent health, “I can’t examine you unless you agree to a full body cat scan—otherwise I have no idea what’s really going on inside your body”.
3. If I had an abscess or an infected root nerve I would be having pain. If that were the case, and an x ray was needed to properly diagnose, I would agree. I am asymptomatic.
4. A dentist is not going to be sued because I refuse x rays. That’s completely false. Definitely not if i sign a statement saying I refuse. (Well, technically he could be sued, but he’s not going to be found guilty of anything.) A patient can completely bleed out in front of a doctor and die if he/she refuses a blood transfusion. The doctor cannot be found guilty of malpractice because the patient refused advised treatment—ie a blood transfusion.
5. I am an adult and my informed health decisions should be mine, not my dentist’s.
6. FYI, for the person making comment that I “should come into the 20th century” I have had x rays in the past—dental, mammograms as well as colonoscopies. I am a reasonable person. I do not want to be coerced into what, in my opinion, are unreasonable requests for x rays.

Welcome to Fluther.

My advice, added to those who have already spoken, would be to educate yourself on radiation and its hazards. I mean “educate”, not just “know that it’s hazardous, and must therefore be avoided at all costs”.

You are already being irradiated, daily, by the planet itself (from the ground up) and from the sky (cosmic radiation). Dental x-rays add so little to your annual dose (and that’s even assuming that you have them annually) as to be almost laughable: People are concerned about this level of radiation?

Really. Education. Your intransigence on the topic is akin to people denying vaccination because of the infinitesimal chance of complications.

The answer is that there can be many hidden problems and it would be negligent of a dentist to not want initial radiograms to look for any underlying problems.
After the initial xrays you can then decline for another few years if you are not experiencing any changes in your oral health.
You may not like it but it is the way it is and for good reason.

You can argue all day but it doesn’t change a thing. Either comply or go without dental care.

You can have your teeth cleaned at one of the local two year trade schools in your area. Call A-B Tech Community College. If they have a dental technician program they are always looking for patients. You will pay a nominal fee. ($10 or free) for an exam and cleaning and not have Xrays taken.

I agree it is your right to refuse X-rays. Just make sure you are refusing for the right reasons. The machines have gotten much better in the past 10 years.
“The dosage of X-ray radiation received by a dental patient is typically small (around 0.150 mSv for a full mouth series, according to the American Dental Association website), equivalent to a few days’ worth of background environmental radiation exposure, or similar to the dose received during a cross-country airplane flight (concentrated into one short burst aimed at a small area).”
Source

Welcome to Fluther. The people here lean toward philosophy that is atheist, medically oriented, liberal in politics, and they tend to bash anyone who thinks otherwise. However, if you have the stomach for it, stay. There are a few of us “hard cases”. I have been here for several years now.

As for your question, I do not think you will find a dentist who will work on you without x-rays in the USA, but there’s always that chance. When I was a kid (I’m an old lady now) my dentist never x-rayed me. He said it wasn’t needed. Things have changed, and you’ll not likely find someone like that now. PM (private message) me when or if you figure it out. I’d like to know.

It just occurred to me that if you went outside the USA to an under developed country, you might find what you are looking for. But you’d be taking a lot of chances.

How does my view on safe and healthy and preventative dental care possibly relate to my political or religious stance?

What’s a medically oriented philosophy? One that has me choosing an orthopedic surgeon to replace my knee rather than…what?

I just looked at Ashville-Buncombe’s programs and they do indeed have a dental program. They always need volunteer subjects.

They will make your pearly whites, pearly white, but not look at what’s below. If you are good with that, give them a call.

ABTech Community College Dental Program

@snowberry Hey….don’t lump me in the melting pot of fluther. I defy categorization. lol

I have always had the option of declining radiographs. Most of the time I will agree to them because I understand their value, but I have declined on several occasions when finances were an issue.

Most dentistry schools have low or no-cost options for residents.

The dentist can’t look inside your teeth. Just like an orthopedist can’t look inside your bone.

That said, you could take a waiver to the dentist basically saying, “I accept suboptimal dental care by refusing x-rays, and I refuse to hold the dentist or his associates liable for any damages to myself or my family members such as but not including dental abscess, jaw damage, gum damage, and tooth removal and death that could have been prevented had I agreed to x-rays”. If you type that out, sign and notarize it, they may see you. I wouldn’t but they might.

I refuse x rays with all my dentists. I get a little argument and then they always relent. They can’t force you to do anything. I did xrays once every 2 years usually, sometimes I waited a little longer. You are there for a cleaning and for the dentist to check your mouth, they can do that still. I am extremely glad I refused the xrays as much as I did. Although, now the xrays have much less radiation than they did when I was younger.

Partly they want to do it because they can’t see everything just by looking without xrays, but also they get more money with xrays. It is the standard of care and doctors and dentists tend to just follow that instead of discussing options are giving you a chance to decide for yourself, standard of care they can’t be sued fr anything, and doctors tend to not be worried about radiation at all, unless you have been put through radiation “treatments” or multiple CT scans, But, you can refuse and they can just mark the chart you refused. Then they are protected if you need something done that should have been caught on xray.

I’ll send the Q to our dentist jelly.

I’ve refused X-rays several times. Often, a dentist will just automatically try to do them, without asking when my last X-ray was. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the only person keeping track of how often this is done – and I think that’s irresponsible of them. I’ve never had a dentist argue with me about it, or refuse me treatment or a cleaning because of it. Just keep looking until you find a dentist you’re comfortable with.

I wonder how often a dentist detects a problem with routine xrays? I have never heard someone say they had something found that way. I guess it must happen, but I wonder the stats on it. Especially for adults who generally have no problems. I do plan to allow more xrays wonce I am over the age of 50. I figure aging will mean more things, my body, will start falling apart a little. Same with mammograms. I only get them every 2–3 years, but once I hit 50 I am willing to do them annually. Every woman I know of who had breast cancer before age 50 found it herself and it was not seen on mammogram. Even once she suspected a problem, the mammogram did not show it. Even famous people like Olivia Newton John said hers was not seen on mammogram. A couple years ago there was the study that concluded yearly mammograms under age 50 aren’t statistically justified and everyone went crazy. So, for now they are still covered and standard of care. I wonder if anyone has done a study lately on the justification of yearly dental xrays?

@JLeslie I have wondered exactly the same thing. I’ve changed dentists a few times, and some “find” more problems than others. The one I currently go to says that I’ve had more work done than I’ve needed, given how I care for my teeth. It leaves me with the impression that some of this interpretation is subjective.

@glacial Some dentists are more conservative than others. Some are just doing things to make money. My last dentist told me he knew dentists who told patients to change their fillings when there was nothing wrong with the fillings already there. It actually can weaken the tooth, because new drilling is done to put in the new filling. Some of it is subjective. One dentist might be willing to wait and watch, while another dentist might be more aggressive. Both approaches might be ok depending on the problem. It doesn’t necessarily mean the aggressive guy is just after more money, I think most of the time they just believe it is the right thing to do.

Just a data point: my dentist found a serious cavity beneath the gum line, invisible from any angle of view during a thorough and careful visual examination. Nothing hurt, and there was no other sign of trouble: asymptomatic. The only indication was the x-ray.

“This is why we take x-rays,” he said.

Nothing hurt yet, but it was going to.

@glacial That was my experience as well. When I was a young adult, I had excellent teeth, not one filling. The first dentist I went to when I was out and on my own hollowed out 4 of my back molars. Another dentist looked at my x-rays from the first dentist and told me that there were no cavities there to fill. I believe that I shouldn’t have had ANY dental work done, and the first guy was a scam artist. Hollowing out teeth like that weakens them and they can break, requiring extensive dental work, which is what happened to me. It has cost me thousands and many hours of trauma in a dentist’s chair.

@Jeruba I’m just curious, how old were you at the time? Were you cavity prone in general? I have no idea how often this type of thing happens, so I am not asking to prove I am right about not doing xrays, it might happen quite often, and might not be worth the risk. I don’t have any assumptions, I just do what I want to do for myself, and I do care what the statistics are, but I honestly have never done any research on it.

@JLeslie, this was within the past two years. I hope that’s close enough to an explicit answer.

I never resist the x-rays my dentist calls for. My dentist is a god.

@Jeruba Yes, thank you.

Maybe take this article with you if you feel dentists aren’t lisetining to your request. I googled a bit, and everything is saying annual xrays probably are not necessary, and to be especially careful with childhood xrays.

Here’s another thought. You could go with thermography screenings for the mouth, and take those to your dentist. I don’t know if cavities below the gum line would show up or not, but I bet they would. I just got the “all clear” from my dentist, went for this screening, and it shows a significant amount of drainage under one of my molars. It never shows up on my x-rays, but it’s there. The person doing the screening said it looks like a cavitation. It makes sense, because for years I’ve had an odd taste in my mouth in that exact spot. Fixing it is another question though. But at least I know now. Let us know what you end up doing.

There definitely ARE dentists who will treat patients without x rays per patient request. I had an excellent one in California, and also one in South Carolina. My question was simply, does anyone know of one in the Asheville, NC area. I did not ask to be lectured by people who think I should have routine x rays.
It is my health and it should be my decision, not anyone else’s. I am not a sheep who blindly does what I am told without looking into the rationale of “why”. And as I said earlier, no dentist has been able to give me a satisfactory answer as to why the benefits of x rays, in my particular case, outweigh the risks.
And to the person who said I should “educate” myself about radiation—maybe you need to reed some of the studies linking meningioma and dental x rays and educate yourself. I am a registered nurse and not entirely without education.
Thanks to those suggesting A/B tech.

Sorry—“read”, not “reed”!

That’s good to know @annceraldi. I’ll keep that in mind. I might consider following your lead and going with thermography screenings instead of all the extra x-rays. Thermography would show up any drainage/infections below the gumline, and a dentist could tell anything visual. I might have a hard time finding one that is on my insurance and in my area, but I suppose there’s a chance.

My dentist and his hygienist always suggest and always explain their thinking and are always willing to listen to my thoughts about waiting until the next visit or the visit after.

My routine mammogram showed microcalcifications that turned out to be cancerous; they were much too small to be felt by palpation, as a lump would have been. I don’t know how being or nor being a celebrity is remotely causal.

@gailcalled How old were you when the mammogram found the cancer? This is not just me babbling, there were scientific studies that wound up backing up what I always thought. Now after searching about dental xrays it seems my gut was right about that also. Not just a celebrity, but also three people I personally know. I realize that does not make for a scientific study.

When I was in my early 20’s, dental x-rays showed that my wisdom teeth were growing in sideways and were the cause of my headaches. I had them removed and the headaches instantly disappeared . It was like flipping a light switch. Wonderful.

@LuckyGuy Is that supposed to support having dental xrays every year?

No. It is just a data point showing how they helped me. Those x-rays were likely many times stronger than the ones we have today. I am guessing equivalent to a month of background radiation. But it was well worth it.

@annceraldi: Please realize that on Fluther, people’s banter back and forth is not necessarily a lecture to you. They’re having what’s akin to a conversation with each other. It’s like throwing up a topic into a room full of people and saying “discuss amongst yourselves.” They’re just talking to each other. Many are like old friends, even though they’ve probably never met.

I’ve had two cavities that have been discovered by dental X-rays

I would like to get feedback on my experience regarding cavitations in my first post here. Why would I get a funny taste in my mouth year after year and the dentist never finds anything? X-rays and even a close up visual examination by camera don’t reveal everything.

^^ Ask that as a separate question if you want feedback. OP asked hers in General.

< is a dentist. Here’s the rationale: Age of patient. Previous dental work. Symptoms. History. Lots of patients can be seen with no x-rays, but they are usually people who have virgin teeth or very small superficial fillings. There you go. Most dentists use the absolute minimum of x-rays. Like everybody else said, you can’t really see the tooth without an x-ray sorry.

@gailcalled Naw, I already know the drill. Been there, done that. Not worth a question here…Thanks though.

We’re here to serve, as you know, as long as it’s under the proper protocol.

LOLOL @gailcalled ! You’re really funny sometimes.