Correcting abrasion

Do you tend to drink too much coke, other effervescent drinks including diet and fitness labeled ones, various juices that contain added acids? Or do you tend to eat too much citrus fruit, vinegar or other acid products?

If you wonder whether the high acid diet recommended by a weight-loss guru, comes too much, you should have in mind that this happens if:

You drink more than four glasses citrus juice a day – this is particularly true if you brush your teeth with a tooth brush and toothpaste immediately after consumption. The explanation is that the abrasive ingredient in the toothpaste combined with the action of fruit acids, is the straightest way to ruin your tooth enamel. The contact of acids with tooth surface stimulates enamel dissolution. The good news is that nature has taken care of this – the process is reversible and temporary, because saliva acts as a buffer aiding enamel particles to get back in place. Tip: one hour after eating citruses or apples, do not rinse your mouth even with water. Otherwise you risk losing the micro particles circulating in the saliva. The ban is also valid for brushing with a toothbrush and toothpaste.
You drink more than 3 glasses of effervescent drinks daily – Fact is that drinking bubbly drinks (and especially Coca Cola) with 12 to 14-year-olds has risen dramatically over the last decades. This explains why sometimes teenagers display early erosion of teeth unseen at that age before. Coca Cola and bubbly drinks result in dehydration, and hence, in falling saliva quantity depriving teeth of proper saliva protection. Tip: control your and your kids’ consumption of bubbly drinks. Many teenagers, mostly boys and young men, have the wrong habit of rinsing their mouth with the effervescent drink. This however ups the time of the acid attack on teeth.
You have the habit of sucking lemons
You are a healthy individual practicing sports every day, and are subject to dehydration – drinking bubbly drinks during sporting sessions (including low calorie and sugarless ones) is no good, because they contain acids. Dehydration of the system means less saliva and this boosts tooth erosion.
You suffer from asthma and use an inhalator on a daily basis. Tip: You can lessen damage by using such an aerosol not more than 4 times a day and through as longer intervals as possible.
You have reflux disease
You have bulimia – vomited undigested food that contains stomach acids can be very active on teeth. Tip: Analyze yourself. What makes you overeat and then feel all the blame? Join a psychotherapy group. Or why don’t you share your problem with your dentist?
You are a wine taster
You drink too much
You work in an environment, in which you are exposed to inhaling acid fumes and aerosols
You use medicines that cause dryness in the mouth in cases of anorexia, depression or reactive psychosis
You produce less salvia than normal – in fact this deprives the mouth of the protective, buffer action of saliva.

Too energetic, aggressive and incorrect brushing of teeth – Fact is that this will most probably cause tooth abrasion. Too frequent and aggressive brushing ruins the tooth cervix. The results are defects that are not unlike small cavities. Abrasive ingredients in toothpaste add to this effect. The worst thing is the incorrect brushing method. So, if you have sensitive teeth with cervix defects you have to do the following:

Brush vertically, not horizontally. Talk to your dentist about the right brushing method.
Use your weaker hand to brush – the left hand, if you are right-handed, and vice-versa.
Hold the toothbrush in the palm instead of holding tight with the fingers. This will ease pressure on teeth.

A few points about chewing pressure on teeth

The normal tooth wear is by one micron a year. Faster wear is considered pathological. Unfortunately, tooth attrition can cause a few functional and esthetic problems – changes in the face contour and the jaw, pain in the jaw and neck etc. Lowering tooth height changes the proportion with tooth width causing receding gums, and cervix defects. You have to bear in mind that the loss of 1mm or 10 to 20% of the tooth height is believed to be considerable damage.

Find below some of the most common causes of tooth wear:

Too strong chewing pressure, grinding and clenching teeth – This is definitely a serious problem, so you have to turn to your dentist for the so-called protective cap (brace) that you have to wear at night, and sometimes during daytime. The outcome, as is the case with any treatment, is very much up to the readiness of the patient to cooperate with the dentist and to the patient’s responsibility. This problem can be aided through the beneficial impact of relaxing massage, needle therapy and homeopathy. Tip: Go for cutting stress and negative emotions. Wear your braces as prescribed. Call on your dentist for proper consultation. Teeth grinding is sometimes due to bad modeling of chewing surfaces and blocking teeth. A single crown made with badly calculated chewing surface can unleash the harmful habit of teeth clenching and grinding.
Bad bite – fillings and crowns with badly modeled chewing surfaces of the back teeth interact traumatically with opposite teeth. This causes overload and attrition of whole groups of teeth. They wear out, lose on height, while the gum recedes. Later cervix cavities and defects will appear as well.
Curved spinal column – it sounds strange, but curvatures of the spinal column on the one hand cause worse tooth abrasion on the left or on the right. Tip: in such cases dental procedures should be combined with proper kinesis treatment.

What should we do when teeth start to wear out?

Tooth wear usually affects all teeth. However, it is the dentist that can make a precise diagnosis. He or she is the one to decide whether the bite or the chewing surfaces of teeth should be corrected. In front teeth one option is elongating by using composite or ceramic veneers. If you wear crowns they should be replaced to match the new bite.

In cases of early abrasion the procedures applied include fluoride lacquering and layering of composite on teeth. Average wear requires lifting the bite and elongation of front teeth with either composite or veneers.

Only in very advanced and extreme cases of attrition typical of old age, correction with crowns may become necessary. Any corrections however, should be bilateral, on both sides and of all teeth. In fact, you are aware that you cannot wear shoes with a heel on only one of them, aren’t you?