So the upper right first molar in a four year old child will be called a 55 (“five-five”), and the first tooth a baby gets (a front tooth at the bottom right or left) will either be the 71 “seven-one” or 81 “eight-one”. So a similar numbering systems exists for baby teeth, except that the quadrant numbers start at 5:Īnd the teeth are identified with the following numbers: There are 20 deciduous (baby or primary) teeth, five in each quadrant. This generates a permanent record of the check up and forms the basis for treatment planning. The assistant will have a system of recording these findings, either by hand or using computer software. They’ve also noticed that there is a lot of wear on the chewing edges of the eight upper front teeth, which might be due to night-time clenching or grinding. In this case, the dentist has noticed a shadow on one side of the upper right second premolar and will need an x-ray to confirm if this is decay. And the incisal edges of 14, 13, 12, 11 ,21, 22, 23 and 24 are heavily worn, possibly bruxing.” “I suspect there is a cavity on the mesial of 15, we’ll need to check that with an x-ray. Your dentist will use similar-sounding number/letter/word combinations to identify the location of cavities, cracks or tooth wear. We’ll explain in another article what these letters mean. This tells the assistant that this patient has four fillings in the top right quadrant: a white (composite) filling on the chewing surface of the second molar, an amalgam filling covering two surfaces of the first molar and second premolar, and a white filling on the canine tooth. “Current restorations: 17 has an occlusal composite, 16 MO (“em-oh”) amalgam, 15 DO (“dee-oh”) amalgam, 13 distal composite” This time they will use a combination of numbers, letters and words. Next, they might identify the presence of fillings, crowns and implants. Also missing is three-four.” What this means is that all of the wisdom teeth are missing, as well as the lower left first premolar. Using these two sets of numbers, your dentist can identify each tooth in your mouth: so your upper right central incisor will be referred to as tooth 11 (and your dentist will say ‘one-one’, not ‘eleven’) and your lower left wisdom tooth is a 38 (‘three-eight’).ĭentists at Corinna Dental take detailed records of every patient, and these tooth numbers are the shorthand way to record the presence or absence of particular teeth.ĭentists will often start their examination of the teeth by taking a general look around the mouth and letting their assistant know which teeth are absent (and therefore which teeth to cross off the dental chart.) So they might say something like “One-eight, two-eight, three-eight and four-eight not present, possibly extracted, we’ll need to check that on the x-rays.
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