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Lansdale, PA Dentist > Oral Health > Page 21

Oral Health

Testing your Knowledge on Tooth Pain

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When it comes to tooth pain, it is important to identify two things: what is causing your pain and what can be done about it. In some instances you can handle it yourself at home; however, for others, you should contact us so that we can diagnose and treat the problem. See how much you really know about tooth pain by taking our true/false test.

True or False

  1. It is perfectly normal to experience tooth sensitivity to hot and cold foods for a few days after dental treatment.
  2. If you experience sharp pain when biting down on foods, you should hold off on contacting us to see if the pain gets better on it own.
  3. Tooth pain is caused by a reaction of nerves inside the tooth’s enamel with the severity of the pain dependant upon the type and degree of the stimulus
  4. Generally speaking, pain is a protective response that ranges from minor to severe as a way of informing the body that something is wrong.
  5. If a tooth’s root surface is sensitive, you should use a firm toothbrush to ensure that you are keeping the area clean by thoroughly removing dental bacterial plaque.
  6. Lingering pain after eating hot or cold foods and liquids probably means that the pulp within your tooth is probably damaged or inflamed as a result of deep tooth decay or injury from a physical trauma.
  7. Regarding tooth sensitivity, you should only contact us if the pain persists for several months because this is not likely to be anything serious.
  8. If a tooth’s pulp becomes damaged or dies, you will need a root canal.
  9. With tooth pain, knowing how long to wait before you contact us can save physical, financial and emotional stress.
  10. People often confuse tooth and sinus pain because they both can feel the same — a dull ache with pressure in the upper teeth and sinus area on one or both sides of the face.

Answers:
1) True.
2) False. You should contact us asap for an examination before the pain worsens.
3) False. The nerves are located in the tooth’s pulp chamber.
4) True.
5) False. Use a soft bristled toothbrush not a firm one.
6) True.
7) False. While tooth sensitivity generally does not signal a serious issue, if it persist for days or worsens, contact us.
8) True.
9) False. Early interception is best.
10) True.

To learn more, continue reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Tooth Pain? Don’t Wait!” Or contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions.

Unconscious Habits Can Wear Down Teeth

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If your teeth have a worn appearance, it’s possible you have a habit you’re not even aware of: clenching or grinding your teeth. Also called “bruxism,” this destructive action causes your top and bottom teeth to come together or scrape past each other with a force that’s many times what is normal for biting and chewing.

So what’s normal? This can be expressed in terms of pounds. An adult usually exerts a force of 13-23 pounds to bite or chew food. But we have the potential to generate as much as 230 pounds of force, or 10 times what’s normal. A “parafunctional” force of this magnitude applied repeatedly is bound to stress your teeth and other areas of your oral system. Besides wearing away the enamel of your teeth — and maybe even some of the softer dentin layer underneath — you may experience muscle spasms or pain in your jaw joints. Serious cases of wear can lead to “bite collapse” in which your face actually changes shape as your cheeks and lips lose support. This can make you look prematurely aged.

What can be done? To prevent further wear, we can fabricate for you a thin, plastic mouthguard that will protect your teeth at night or during times of intense stress. We can also recommend ways to temporarily relieve the discomfort that your grinding/clenching habits can cause. Heat and/or anti-inflammatory medication, for example, can be helpful.

If your tooth wear is minor (raggedness along the biting edge of a tooth or teeth) you may not need any restorative work. However, if tooth wear has already caused changes to your teeth and bite that you find aesthetically or functionally unacceptable, we can restore lost tooth structure in a variety of ways. Veneers and crowns are two examples.

If you have any questions about tooth wear or grinding habits, please contact us today to schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can learn more about this topic by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “How And Why Teeth Wear.”

Don’t Keep It A Secret: Tell Us About Your Dry Mouth

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Millions of people suffer from mouth dryness, but most people just never talk about it. As your dental care providers, we don’t want you to keep it a secret anymore and mouth dryness really can be a problem.

Why? Saliva is a very important fluid that moisturizes, lubricates, and aids in the first stages of chewing and digestion. A normal flow of saliva provides antibacterial benefits that even protect against cavities by buffering the effects of acids. It can also make the surfaces of your teeth more vulnerable to abrasion and erosion. Without enough saliva, you may be especially at risk for not only tooth decay, but even yeast infections.

Causes of dryness include dehydration and even morning breath, both of which are normal. Smoking, alcohol and coffee drinking also cause dryness. It is also a side effect of many medications. Although mouth dryness is not a disease in itself, it could be a symptom of salivary gland or other systemic (general body) disease.

As a first step in the treatment, we will assess your situation by taking a detailed habit, diet, medical, and drug history to properly assess the cause and establish whether this is a local condition affecting only your mouth or an indication of a generalized bodily problem.

It’s always helpful to keep yourself well hydrated by simply drinking a sufficient amount of water every day and by using good daily oral hygiene to remove dental bacterial plaque. Chewing gum, especially containing Xylitol, will also help promote saliva flow and keep your mouth moist. Be careful not to suck on candy or mints, because they are likely to cause decay. There are also prescription medications that can be used to promote more saliva flow.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment or to discuss your dry mouth and what we can do to help. For more information read the article on Dry Mouth in Dear Doctor magazine.

Root Canal Treatment for Primary (Baby) Teeth

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If you think your child is too young to need root canal treatment, think again — there is no age limit for this treatment. If his/her primary (baby) teeth have been injured, or if decay has advanced deep into the roots of your child’s teeth, a root canal treatment to stabilize teeth may be needed. Root canal treatment removes infection from the pulp, the living tissue that is found inside the tooth’s roots. The pulp contains the tooth’s nerves, so tooth pain is often an indication that decay has moved into the pulp.

When performing root canal treatment on primary teeth, we must keep in mind that the primary teeth’s roots will be resorbed as part of the normal process in which the body makes room for the growing permanent teeth that will take their place.

If a child experiences tooth pain that is related to changes of temperature or pressure, or exposure to sweet or acidic foods, the infection is likely to be minor and easily repaired. But if he or she feels a constant or throbbing pain regardless of stimulation, it may indicate an extensive infection of the pulp and surrounding area.

If the infection is advanced, the baby tooth may have to be removed. But if baby teeth are lost prematurely, a malocclusion (from “mal” meaning bad and “occlusion” meaning bite) can easily result; so we make every effort to keep the baby teeth in place to guide the permanent teeth that are forming underneath them, inside the child’s jaw. In such cases an endodontist (from the root “endo” meaning inside and “dont” meaning tooth) or pediatric dentist may perform root canal treatment, removing the diseased and infected pulp from within the tooth’s roots and replacing it with a substance that can be absorbed when it is time for the baby tooth’s roots to be resorbed naturally.

When baby teeth are injured through a fall or blow to the face (referred to as traumatic injury) they may develop discoloration varying from yellow to dark gray. This is a sign of damage to the pulp tissues inside the tooth’s roots. Dark gray discoloration often indicates that the pulp tissues have died. In such cases root canal treatment is needed to remove the dead tissue. If a tooth is completely knocked out of the child’s mouth, most dentists agree that it should not be replanted because of the risk of damage to the developing tooth underneath.

Root canal treatment for baby teeth is a better choice than tooth removal if at all possible. It helps a child retain full function of their teeth, jaws and tongue, preventing speech problems, and it helps guide the permanent teeth into their proper places.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions about treatment for children’s teeth. You can also learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Root Canal Treatment for Children’s Teeth.”

Diabetics, Watch Out for a Hidden Enemy: Gum Disease

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Periodontal (gum) disease, though it may be invisible to everyone but your dentist, can have a powerful effect on your entire body. Not only is it dangerous to your teeth and jaws, but it can increase your risk of heart attack and stroke, cause preterm births in pregnant women, and affect blood sugar control in diabetics.

Diabetics are our subject for today. Symptoms of diabetes include abnormally high levels of glucose (a form of sugar) in the blood, leading to frequent urination, excessive thirst, blurred vision, unexplained weight loss, and loss of energy. The disease can also cause severe complications in various parts of the body.

Normally, glucose, your body’s main energy source, is kept under control by a hormone called insulin, which is made by an organ called the pancreas. In type 1 diabetes, a person’s pancreas does not produce enough insulin to deal with all the glucose in his or her blood. In type 2 diabetes — a condition related to increased age, physical inactivity, overweight, and heredity — the pancreas may produce enough insulin, but the body is not able to use it effectively. This condition is called insulin resistance.

People with type 1 diabetes need insulin to survive. Type 2 may be treated with exercise, diet, medications, and insulin supplements.

Serious complications of diabetes range from kidney failure, blindness, and nerve damage to infections that do not heal, gangrene and amputation of limbs.

Diabetes and periodontal disease seem to have reciprocal effects on each other. Diabetics are more likely to have periodontal disease than non-diabetics; and those with periodontal disease are likely to face worsening blood sugar control over time.

Periodontal disease (from “peri”, meaning around and “odont”, meaning tooth), is caused by dental plaque — a film of bacteria that settles on your teeth and gums every day. It’s what you remove with daily brushing and flossing. Any bacteria that remain cause inflammation, which can lead in the worst cases to loss of bone and eventual loss of teeth.

The close relationship of diabetes and periodontal disease probably results from changes in the function of immune cells responsible for healing. Inflammation is a part of normal wound healing — but chronic or prolonged inflammation can destroy the tissues it was meant to heal. This may be a major factor in the destructive complications of diabetes.

Many of these complications begin in the blood vessels. Like the eyes and the kidneys, gum tissues are rich in blood vessels. Gum tissues are also under constant attack from bacteria. If you are a diabetic, effective plaque control, along with regular professional dental cleaning, can have positive effects not only on periodontal disease, but also on control of your blood glucose level.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions about periodontal disease and its connections with diabetes. You can also learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Diabetes & Periodontal Disease.”

Facts You Should Know About Tooth Wear

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You may have noticed, as you get older, that the enamel of your teeth is looking worn in certain areas. Sometimes tooth wear takes the form of a minor chipping or fracturing at the incisal (cutting) edges of the teeth, or a loss of tooth material from the area near the gum line. In more severe cases, worn teeth look quite a bit smaller than they used to. Why does this happen?

Some wear with age is natural. But too much wear can interfere with your bite, expose more sensitive inner parts of the tooth to decay, and give you a more aged appearance.

There are things you can control that affect wear:

Your habits: Clenching or grinding habits, also called “bruxism,” is a major cause of tooth wear. The motion of teeth sliding over each other with forces that are beyond what’s normal for biting or chewing causes a mechanical removal of tooth enamel. This can happen during sleep or periods of high stress. In either case there are therapies available, such as a thin, professionally made mouthguard that prevents your teeth from coming into contact with each other. Holding foreign objects, such as nails and bobby pins, between your teeth can also cause wear.

Your diet: Tooth enamel can be eroded (dissolved away) by acidic beverages, such as sodas, sports drinks and juices. Frequent snacking on sugary foods encourages the growth of oral bacteria that produce acid as a byproduct — also leaving your teeth vulnerable to tooth decay. Your saliva can buffer the effects of the acid in your mouth in about half an hour; if you consume these types of foods and beverages continually, there won’t be enough time for this to work.

We can restore the appearance and function of worn teeth in a variety of ways. Porcelain crowns and veneers, for example, can re-establish the normal thickness and length of teeth while improving their color and giving you a more youthful appearance.

If you have any questions about tooth wear, please contact us today to schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can learn more about tooth wear by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “How And Why Teeth Wear.”

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