The power of a photo: Seeing through the eyes of a Dentist.

I work in a very small world.  The problems that develop on teeth can be microscopic.  In order to help me in this small world I use 2.5X and 4.5X magnification along with a very bright head lamp and mirrors to look into all of the odd angles of the mouth.  Needless to say I see peoples mouths in a completely different way than they do.

It's no wonder that I am able to find many things in my patients mouth that they are unaware of.  This is one of the reasons we take a lot of photos in our office.  We consistently take 9 photos of all our new patients.  We also frequently take photos of things we find during dental surgery and photos of our finished work.

I hope the photos below help to show the difference that a patient might see compared to what I might see with my Dental loops (magnification)

A fairly normal size to look at a tooth
At this size nothing may look troubling

Now try to lean in  a little and you may notice some suspicious dark areas

Zoom in with some low power loops say 2.5X and you may notice a crack

Now lets look at it through some higher power loops say 4.5x the crack at the top of the tooth is now very apparent

Now add a little more light and this a tooth the crack at the top seems obvious.  

This is how I see the tooth as a dentist.  I look at the ridge of the tooth splitting.  I can almost see the bacteria crawling into this crack causing it to stain as the they slowly produce acid causing the tooth to decay as the crack and the bacteria continue on their way to find the nerve.  These problems usually wait to break or cause pain until you are on some cruse ship off the coast of another country.  You final bite into an almond extending the crack into the nerve and will not be able to to eat sleep or even have a cold drink the rest of the trip.  Well at I see similar situations happen fairly regularly. 

My two boys

Can you tel who's who?  One is the new born photo of Jack the other is Scott.

The most excited people get when talking about me is when they are talking about my two boys Jack and Scott.  So here are some photos of them.

This is what Jack thought of Scott when he first met him.

With the extra space around the photos I will fill with a bunch of stories of these two Leatham boys.

But after a few weeks he started to like his little brother.

An interesting thing about Jack and Scott is that I was the second child and had an older brother.  Already Jack and Scott seem to be similar.  Jack has to stay busy all the time like my older brother Mica.  Scott has been more reserved like his Dad.  Must be a second child thing.

Mom and Scott in the deliver room March 6, 2015

Jack wasn't so sure of Scott when he first met him at the hospital.  But after Scott came home Jack made up his mind, Scott was great... For about 2 minutes and then Jack moved on to more interesting things like his trucks.

 Luckily Grandpa Leatham was out to help and Jack had a new best friend to distract him from the needy little thing Mom and Dad brought home one day.

Jack fishing with Dad at the Clark county fair
in Logandale, NV Dr Leatham's home town.

After Grandpa left it didn't take Jack to long to warm up to his little brother.  Now he has been trying to fill Scott in on all he has learned in his 2 1/2 years in this world.

Both of the Leatham boys were ambitious from the start.   Jack was born 6 days early and Scott was born 10 days early.  Jack weigh 8 lbs 9.5 oz and Scott was exactly 1 lb less.  He was also 1.5 in shorter at 19 in. They were both born with a full head of hair. Jack went bald at 4 months then grew blonde hair, even though both Katey and I have dark hair we both have blonde brothers.

Dad and Scott in the delivery room.

Jack going down a carnival slide with Katey.

Another who's who photo of Jack and Scott both when they were newborns.