Digital technology has revolutionized dental and orthodontic care. Dr. Karen Reese with Reese Orthodontics in New Hope and Chanhassen, Minnesota, was an early adopter of digital technology. Dr. Reese cares about your comfort, and our technology makes your patient experience much easier.

Following are the digital technology tools that Dr. Reese uses in our practice to make your experience as smooth and stress-free as possible.

Digital X-rays

Digital X-rays have great benefits over traditional X-rays for you, Dr. Reese, and your other dental providers. With traditional X-rays, your provider placed plastic pieces in your mouth that often hurt your gums and made you gag. It took a long time to get X-rays of all your teeth.

With digital X-rays, we place tiny sensors in your mouth and a computer produces precise pictures of your teeth, gums, and jaw. Dr. Reese can manipulate the images to enhance and enlarge them and alter contrast and brightness. All of these advantages help her identify issues with your teeth and gums.

Dr. Reese gets the results faster than with regular X-rays, and although you’re exposed to very little radiation with traditional X-rays, you’re exposed to even less with digital X-rays.

iTero intraoral scanner

The iTero® intraoral scanner lessens patient time in the dental chair and is an important part of orthodontia care, especially if Dr. Reese is using clear aligners to straighten your teeth. You’re exposed to no radiation during the scanning process.

Prior to scanning technology, dentists and orthodontists had to make impressions of your mouth by having you place your teeth in a metal mold filled with messy material that caused many people to gag. A huge advantage of the scanner is that Dr. Reese doesn’t have to use those old-fashioned, messy molds to make an impression of your teeth. The scanner makes it easy, and fast, and it’s more accurate than the molds ever were.

The scanner is a handheld device with a rectangular wand that has a laser on the end. Dr. Reese holds the laser and waves it throughout your mouth. The laser emits a special light as it takes images of all of your teeth and gums.

The tip of the wand fits in your open mouth easily, so that Dr. Reese can reach your back molars without any discomfort on your part. You can breathe normally and swallow during the scan.

The scan only takes minutes to complete and yields a 3D picture of your teeth and gums. Dr. Reese uses the images to plan each step of your orthodontic treatment.

The scanner has a tool to track the progress of your Clear Aligners treatment. If you have a teen or are a teen, seeing the progress of treatment can increase motivation to wear your aligners as Dr. Reese instructs.

If you have Clear Aligners, the Clear Aligners system has an iTero outcome simulator. You can see how the final results of your orthodontic treatment are going to look.

For the most advanced orthodontic care available today, call our office most convenient to you or book an appointment online today.