dentist googles are safe??

FrothyChimp said:

The glasses mentioned conform to EN166 standards. These are the impact resistance standards of CE. They are simple eye protection from flying debris certified. The lenses are polycarbonate which filters UV light by it's normal chemical nature thus usable by dentists who are curing UV activated dental glues and appliances. They offer no optical density to any particular wavelength. What you need are glasses that conform to EN207 or EN208 (latter being alignment filters) to be sure of laser protection.

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Not to belabor the point any longer, but as a practicing dentist with lots of laser and light curing experience, FrothyChimp is absolutely correct. The plastic orange lenses used by dentists only block the 400nm to 500nm non coherent light frequencies, and are definitely not certified for use with lasers.

I use an 8 Watt argon ion laser (448nm and 512nm), and the glasses that all who are in my laser treatment room use are certified and cost about $250 each.

FYI, the reason for the visible light in dentistry is that the composite (white) fillings have a chemical in them called camphoquinone, which when activated by the light causes the resin to cross link and harden. UV cured materials have not been used in dentistry for more than 35 years because of the potential eye exposure danger.

That might actually suggest these glasses are useful protection against 445 nm since thats in the middle of the blocking range. Without OD and durability specifications there is still no guarantee of effective protection against any laser power though.

As for using UV: its still usable to identify composite dental fillings by eye (they glow greenish), although you can see them on dental xrays fairly easy due to barium content.

The best way to identify composite fillings is as you said radiographically, not necessarily because of the barium content (which would make them clearly radiopaque), but because they look different then natural tooth structure to trained eyes. In addition, simply touching the filling with a dental explorer or scaler will let the dentist know for certain if the filling is composite or porcelain. FYI, the inclusion of polycrystalline ceramic metal oxide is the latest product to make fillings radiopaque, in addition to the quartz filling material itself.

While composites may glow under UV in the lab, there would still be no clinical use for it, and as far I know, is not currently used anywhere in live patient treatment.