If you get to the point where your tooth hurts all the time, you either have an advanced cavity or another, equally serious oral health issue. You need to see your dentist as soon as possible to diagnose the cause of pain so you can treat it and try to salvage your tooth.
For some patients, however, it may be too late for a filling to save the tooth by the time they visit their dentist. If your tooth becomes sensitive or aches due to a cavity, then you only have a limited amount of time before it becomes too extensive for a filling to address.
It can take as long as five years from the time a cavity begins to develop to when the tooth needs treatment to prevent the cavity from spreading further. For some people, though, that period can be as short as a few months. No two mouths are unique, so there is no standard timeline for the development of cavities.
Delayed treatment can also lead to the decay reaching the nerve of your tooth. At this point, our dentists may recommend root canal therapy and the placement of a dental crown to protect the vulnerable tooth. Tooth extraction could also happen if the decay is severe enough.
For all the good brushing does, it will not eliminate the cavity. The bottom line is you do not have the power to stop your cavity from growing. Your cavity will gradually expand to the point that it moves into the pulp chamber and spurs pain. If the cavity reaches the pulp of the tooth, it will require a root canal.
It can, on average, take anywhere from six months to four or five years before a cavity requires treatment. The length of time it takes will vary on a case-by-case basis because the conditions of your mouth differ daily.
A person who can't brush or floss, who accumulates acid-producing bacteria around the teeth, who does not use fluoride or oral calcium products, and who has stomach acid in the mouth from GERD or bulimia can grow cavities that invade the dental nerve in as little as three or six months.
The cavity will continue to grow. A cavity is like cancer to your teeth. The longer it sits in place, the more damage it can do. Your Clermont dentist will need to remove the cavity before it can spread to your other teeth and to the roots.
What Does a Cavity Look Like? While it is usually difficult to see a cavity in its beginning stages, some cavities start with a whitish or chalky appearance on the enamel of your tooth. More serious cases can have a discolored brown or black color. However, most often there are no distinguishable red alerts.
Cavities don't go away on their own, and if you don't treat them in time, they can spread to the entire surface of the tooth, and then to other teeth. Cavities tend to widen and deepen, making your teeth brittle and more prone to cracking or breaking.
However, the following are common warning signs that your tooth is non-vital or headed that way: Turning darker or discoloration. Unexplained swelling or raised pimple like area (abscess) Loose tooth (loss of support due to infected bone)
Without treating a cavity, you risk serious illness and death. Fortunately, modern cavity treatment is common and very accessible. Reach out to your dentist to learn more about treating your cavity and taking the pain away.
If the decay reaches your tooth's main structure, called dentin, then a filling can replace the lost tooth structure after your dentist has cleaned the cavity of bacteria and infection. However, if it reaches the tooth's center chamber, called the pulp, a filling may no longer suffice to address it.
3rd Stage: Decay of the Dentin
Because the nerve is exposed to outside stimuli once the decay has reached the dentin layer, you will experience pain and hypersensitivity. At this stage, the loss of minerals in your dental enamel causes it to collapse and form a cavity.
If a tooth infection goes untreated, it can spread to other areas of the body over a period of weeks or months. This can cause serious symptoms like fever, difficulty breathing, or trouble swallowing. Death can occur quickly without immediate care.
Multiple factors can influence how quickly tooth decay progresses, including oral hygiene, diet, and more. However, most cavities take several months or years to form.
The tooth infection spread to brain symptoms are more or less similar to the symptoms you see when the infection has spread to the body, but brain abscesses also have some other telltale clues: Confusion or irritability. Issues with nerve function, like muscle weakness or even paralysis. Seizures.
Though good oral hygiene that includes brushing and flossing helps in preventing cavities, you may still get cavities. The reasons can be many, like the spaces between teeth that easily trap food, consuming too much cavity-causing foods and beverages, avoiding regular professional-level cleanings and checkups, etc.
Feeding the bacteria inside your mouth with their favorite foods will lead to multiplication, wreaking more havoc on your oral health. Bacteria feast off of sticky foods, which can stick to your teeth's surfaces and produce acid. Acidic pH can eventually deteriorate your teeth's enamel.
Brushing helps remove bits of food and plaque from your teeth, but it doesn't always get the food and bacteria from between them. Most adult cavities form between the teeth. These are called interproximal cavities.
So if you have a cavity that needs a filling, don't delay treatment. The decay can continue to develop and cause additional damage to a tooth. You can end up needing something much more extensive, not to mention expensive, such as a root canal if you wait too long to have the decay addressed.