What is tooth decay?
Tooth decay is a multifactorial disease.
What does that mean?
Multi-factorial means that there's not just one thing that causes tooth decay; it is caused by many different things. In short, tooth decay is any disease or process that can erode your teeth or cause cavities.
What are some factors that contribute to tooth decay?
The most commonly accepted reason that a person gets tooth decay is refined sugar.
Is it sugar that actually erodes your teeth or causes cavities?
Actually no, it's not. But what happens when a person eats sugar is that it feeds the bacteria that live on and around your teeth. When the bacteria feed on that sugar, they in turn release acid. It is that acid that is released onto your teeth that starts to erode your enamel.
Is sugar the only reason that a person can get tooth decay?
Absolutely not. There are many other reasons that go into tooth decay. Some of those things I think are definitely underappreciated, and one of them, believe it or not, is when people have acid reflux disease.
What are the signs of tooth decay and how can you tell if you have tooth decay?
The initial stages of tooth decay are completely symptom-free. There's actually no pain to a small cavity.
Why is that?
Well, it's because the outer shell of your tooth, the enamel, has no nerve endings. It's not until a cavity gets deeper past that outer force field that you'll begin to feel the signs of having a cavity. The deeper a cavity gets, the more sensitivity you'll have until the cavity gets all the way to the core of your tooth.
What happens if I don't fix my cavities or my tooth decay?
Unfortunately, cavities are kind of like tooth cancer. They don't go away on their own and will keep getting deeper and deeper into your tooth until your tooth becomes infected. It may die, or you may have a bone abscess if the infection travels down into your jawbone. Some of those problems can be life-threatening. We definitely want to intervene as soon as possible when you have tooth decay.
What does fluoride do?
Fluoride is to your teeth like calcium is to your bones. It's a mineral that, if we paint onto your tooth, can soak into your enamel and strengthen it against cavities.
What do I mean by no return? Can we still fix it?
Of course, we can. That's what we do every day. But we'd rather be minimally invasive. I'd rather have fluoride painted on my teeth than have to get some kind of intervention like a filling or something bigger than that. There is a certain point of no return where painting fluoride on a tooth is not going to be enough to stop the cavity. Namely, once the cavity has gone beyond the outer shell or enamel barrier of your tooth and the cavity has gotten inside the tooth, it's time to do an intervention. Usually, those interventions will involve some kind of filling.
How does that work?
Generally speaking, we will tailor a plan specifically for you so that you can understand why you might be prone to tooth decay. That way we can help prevent it from ever happening again in the future.