Remote Consultations
In order to work within the current government restrictions, we are supplying each patient in active treatment with lip retractors and instructions as part of a remote monitoring service.
This will assist you in taking photos of your teeth, which we can then use to better assess your teeth and appliances together with your ongoing treatment needs.
To ensure we can get a clear view of your teeth it will be necessary to provide us with clear, well focussed photographs. If you have not already been given retractors, then please ask for them at your next appointment.
Taking good photos
A few tips to ensure you take good quality photographs to send us include:
Get someone to help you. It is hard to get a good photograph if you try and do it yourself.
Sit in a well-lit area. Having sufficient light is key to getting a good picture.
You may not get it right first time, so take your time and don’t get frustrated. In the beginning, it’s not easy getting good photos of inside your mouth, but you’ll soon find it easier and getter better at it.
Tap the screen on a darker area inside the mouth to set focus and the correct exposure.
Experiment taking photos with and without flash. Some phone cameras work better with the flash turned on, whilst others take a better photograph without a flash.
When taking photos with teeth together, make sure that you are biting on your back teeth.
Take at least five photos of your teeth. The standard five pictures are from the front, left and right sides, top and bottom teeth. Also include photos of any particular area that concerns you. You will need to pull the retractors slightly to the back and side to get good left and right photos and open your mouth to get good pictures from the top and bottom.
Additional photos are needed for patients with:
Clear aligners—we need extra photos of you with your aligners in and your teeth slightly apart so we can assess the fit of your aligners.
Expansion plates—we need additional photos of you biting on your front teeth (as if you were biting into an apple) as this will help us assess the amount of expansion you have and how much more expansion you need.
Getting your photos to us
There are two ways we may ask you to send your photos to us.
By phone app. We will be using Dental Monitoring Light which will require you to download an app to your smart phone. You can then upload your photos to us using their advanced technology, which has some advantages over simply emailing your photos to us. We anticipate using Dental Monitoring for regular treatment reviews.
Sending photos directly to our care@freezerorthodontics.com.au email address if you haven’t yet downloaded the app.
We will provide more information regarding these alternatives as they come to hand.