Knowing the information on your dentist’s teeth chart can be important when it comes to treatment and ongoing dental health. If you’re unfamiliar with this chart, don’t worry! The purpose of the chart is to let you know which teeth are healthy and which require repair or maintenance, and it uses four different numbers to do so. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to read your dentist’s teeth numbers chart so that you can understand exactly what your dentist needs to work on next time you visit their office for checkups or other treatments.
Why Are There Two Charts
There are two charts used by dentists: numbers and letters. They’re often confused, so you’ll want to be sure which one your dentist is talking about. The numbers chart will look like: Tooth #1 → Tooth #3 → Tooth #5. That means teeth 1, 2, and 3 are located between teeth 4 and 6 (and then 7).
Reading The Chart
Once you’ve mastered how to find your dental tooth numbers, there are three things you need to remember when reading teeth charts. First, unlike phone numbers, which never use 0 in front of digits below 10, dentists always do. Second, instead of giving specific names for each number on their chart (with possibly confusing words like fifth or eighth), they name each set based on whether it includes an upper tooth or lower tooth in its equation.
And third, and most importantly, dentists don’t actually use all 10s in their equations—they just start over at zero after nine! So if you’re looking at a chart that says 2-4-6-8-10, for example, then your top two teeth would be labeled 2 and 4 and your bottom two would be 6 and 8. If you’re still confused about how to read dentist’s teeth numbers charts after all that explanation, here’s one more helpful hint.
Memorizing The Numbers
The easiest way for adults to learn how dentists number teeth is by memorizing them. The first thing you should do is memorize dental tooth numbers zero through nine. It’s not that hard: zero, one, two, three, four, five, six and seven are just natural numbers (0-9). Eight and nine are larger symbols. Once you know those basics it should be easy enough to understand all of the other dental numbering systems. To help you get started with memorization we’ve included a few tips below. As long as you have time each day—for only a few minutes at first—you can commit these numbers to memory in no time at all!
Apply It
The dental tooth number chart is usually found on one of two types of tooth charts: natural teeth or restorations. Either way, each tooth has its own dental number, which designates its position in your mouth. The process is similar for natural teeth and restorations because it doesn’t matter. If you’re talking about an existing tooth or about what will replace. That existing tooth once treatment begins the concept is still pretty much identical. The idea behind both charts are to allow your dentist. Easy access (pun intended) to identify and locate specific teeth, and ultimately work towards restoring healthy oral hygiene after he or she replaces or removes any problematic issues with them.
