Poor Oral Care: Decay, cavities, lack of pulp – all can result in brittle teeth due to: Inadequate brushing, which eventually destroys the tooth pulp. Overbrushing, which can erode enamel. Lack of or inadequate fluoride, which defends your teeth against all sorts of bad stuff.
Your teeth are exposed to acidic foods and drinks every day, and over time our enamel naturally breaks down as a result. Essentially, the older we get, the more likely we are to experience a chipped tooth because our enamel simply isn't as strong anymore.
Lack of a Nutritional Diet. 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.
Medical Conditions: Some health concerns can lead to weak, brittle teeth, including osteoporosis, eating disorders, and gastroesophageal acid reflux disease (GERD).
Biting and chewing hard foods, such as popcorn kernels, candy, or ice. Bad oral habits, such as opening lids and cans with your teeth, gum chewing, or ice chewing. Large dental fillings or a root canal – these restorations weaken the tooth structure, potentially causing chips and cracks.
There are many ways teeth can be saved with periodontal treatment using bone and gum grafts. Teeth can also be fixed with crowns and dental repair material if they are broken down. Missing teeth can be replaced with bridges and/or dentures if the person wants to avoid placing dental implants into their mouth.
If a tiny portion of your tooth is broken, the dentist might recommend protecting the remaining portion of the tooth with dental fillings or a dental crown. If you have a severe fracture, the dentist offers endodontic surgery to eliminate the fractured portion to protect the dental pulp in the tooth.
You can still brush a broken tooth, but you should be gentle and very careful while doing so. Brushing too hard could cause pain or further damage to the tooth, especially if the nerves on the inside of the tooth are exposed. Flossing around a damaged tooth may help to reduce pain or pressure on the broken tooth.
A broken tooth shouldn't be left untreated. Even if a broken tooth doesn't hurt or isn't bothering you, it can put you at risk for other more serious issues if not corrected quickly. One of the most bothersome risks of leaving a broken tooth alone is having food get stuck inside, which can cause acute infections.
However, if a tooth is severely damaged, your dentist may not be able to save it. In these cases, they will normally recommend that the tooth be removed. Dentists may recommend removal in the following circumstances: Dental injury resulting in a cracked or fractured tooth or root.
A dead tooth can stay in your mouth for up to several days or months; however, keeping a dead tooth may lead to problems with your jaw and also result in the spreading of decay and bacteria to other teeth. Most dentists will recommend having the dead tooth extracted and replaced with a denture, bridge, or implant.
There are several options available for those who need free or low-cost dental treatment. For instance, your dentist may refer you to a community clinic that offers dental treatment for a low fee, or a nearby dental school where you can be treated for free or at a low cost by students in training.
You should keep a broken tooth clean with brushing and oral irrigation. If you don't brush, the gums can grow over the area of missing tooth and turn into a gum infection.
As gum disease (also known as periodontitis) progresses, patients can experience tenderness and bleeding, bad breath, discharge from the gums, and teeth that shift, feel loose, or even fall out.
Most children lose their last baby tooth around the age of 12. All non-wisdom teeth are typically in place around your child's 13th birthday. Wisdom teeth may wait until age 21 to make their presence known.
All four center teeth, known as bottom and top incisors, usually fall out in the 6-8 year range. The sharp teeth beside them (called canines or cuspids) as well as the first molars leave a little later, around 9-12 years old. The second molars are often the last to go … typically in the 10-12 year range.
The rate of tooth decay in people over 65 now outpaces that of schoolchildren. A prime target of dental caries in older adults is around the neck of the tooth, adjacent to the gum line. Gum tissue naturally recedes with age, so the soft root tissue becomes exposed.
A dying tooth may appear yellow, light brown, gray, or even black. It may look almost as if the tooth is bruised. The discoloration will increase over time as the tooth continues to decay and the nerve dies. If you experience any symptoms of a dying tooth, it's important to see your dentist right away.
A dead tooth will also no longer have any blood flow to it. A dead nerve in a tooth is sometimes referred to as a necrotic pulp or a pulpless tooth. Once this happens, the tooth will eventually fall out by itself.
If you break or chip a tooth, one of the possibilities is that you only damage the enamel layer. This means that you might not compromise the dentin layer, which protects the sensitive pulp. In that case, it's possible not to feel pain or only feel a mild toothache.
A broken or cracked tooth treatment does not always need to be an extraction procedure. Sometimes the dentist may recommend alternative reparative solutions like root canal therapy.
If the crack is small and does not go down to the root of the tooth, a filling may be able to be used to fix the problem. However, if the crack is large or goes down to the root of the tooth, an extraction will most likely be necessary to prevent infection.