What are “Soft Teeth?”

Some­times patients come to see us with a long his­tory of cav­i­ties, fill­ings, then new cav­i­ties and more fill­ings, or cav­i­ties around the fill­ings and big­ger fill­ings, then yet more cav­i­ties turn­ing to root canals and crowns, then cav­i­ties AGAIN so the teeth have to be extracted.….and after a while, they start believ­ing that they have “soft teeth,” and there’s no point in any den­tal work except tak­ing them out and get­ting dentures.

I remem­ber one lady in her mid-30’s who came to me years ago. Her story was sad — per­fect teeth until she started hav­ing chil­dren, when she sud­denly started get­ting cav­i­ties.  After her 3^rd child, it got worse.….…a LOT worse!  She was des­per­ate — she had spent so much time and money at the den­tist, but the cav­i­ties kept com­ing back.  We ended up doing a bunch of veneers and gave her a beau­ti­ful new smile back.….….but I kid you not, within 2 years there were cav­i­ties around those veneers!  And trust me.…..she worked SO HARD at keep­ing her teeth clean and healthy!  She was NOT one of those patients who never brush or floss — she was fanat­i­cal about it. We tried every­thing I knew at the time; sadly, I even­tu­ally referred her to a spe­cial­ist who did den­tal implants that couldn’t get cavities.

There is NO SUCH THING as “Soft Teeth”

OK, now you want to know why — after that expe­ri­ence and a cou­ple sim­i­lar ones, I say there’s no such thing as “soft teeth,” right?  Well, since then, I’ve learned a lot more, and I’m con­fi­dent in say­ing that NOT ONLY is there no such thing, but there ARE things we can do now to pre­vent that sad cycle.

Heart­burn and Acid Reflux

A few months back, I dis­cussed one of the biggest and most undi­ag­nosed rea­sons for this in my post on Why Moms Get Cav­i­ties After Babies: ACID REFLUX.  Seri­ously!  Take a look at this chart that shows just how acidic stom­ach acid is (click to see a big­ger ver­sion, eas­ier to read).

Some stud­ies indi­cate that up to 75% of peo­ple with heart­burn have zero symp­toms.  But it is more dam­ag­ing to teeth than sodas, mon­ster drinks, or any other food that you ingest.  Yet some­how, peo­ple never stop to think about this, and even when they do, they dis­miss it as unim­por­tant. PLEASE under­stand how seri­ous I am about this — I have seen so many patients who even KNOW they have heart­burn, but some­how still try to say that’s not the problem.

After all, what do you think hap­pens to teeth for bulimic patients?  Take a look at how thin and translu­cent these teeth are, and know that this patient suf­fered from bulimia for more than 10 years:

Enamel is the Hard­est Sub­stance in the Human Body

Here’s the sim­ple truth: enamel is MUCH harder than bone, because it has to be so you can chew food your entire life, right?  And since the hard­ness comes from hav­ing a lot of min­er­als (cal­cium, phos­phates, flu­o­ride), there is only one way for enamel to become weak: to have the min­er­als taken out.  And there’s only one way for the min­er­als to come out of your teeth: ACID.  That does include sodas, sports drinks (look up where Gatorade falls on the chart — scary, isn’t it?), and stom­ach acid, among other things.  But when your teeth come in, they are the hard­est, strongest, dens­est part of your whole body, no mat­ter what den­tal prob­lems your par­ents had.

The Worst Sodas for Cavities

Ff course, DIET and NUTRITION are part of the prob­lem, too, and along with being a major con­trib­u­tor to dia­betes and obe­sity, sodas are the most com­mon prob­lem drinks.  If you ask almost any den­tist which are the worst sodas for caus­ing cav­i­ties, you will get more agree­ment than on almost any other den­tal topic:

• Moun­tain Dew^TM
• Mel­low Yel­low^TM
• Sun­Drop^TM
• Dr. Pep­per^TM

You’ll notice a pat­tern — the yel­low sodas are the worst offend­ers.  I can’t say that I know why, but it’s almost guar­an­teed.  Of all the dark sodas, only Dr. Pep­per seems to cause such a “cavities-gone-wild” sce­nario.  I’ve seen a cou­ple patients with tons of cav­i­ties who reported drink­ing Coca-Cola^TM or Pepsi^TM, but not even close to these others.

Other Causes of Lots of Cavities

• Obvi­ously, if you don’t brush and floss your teeth
• Dry Mouth Syn­drome due to med­ica­tions: many drugs dry up your saliva, which is impor­tant for keep­ing your teeth washed
• Radi­a­tion Ther­apy for head/neck can­cer: same as with the med­ica­tions, this makes your saliva vol­ume and qual­ity lower, mak­ing it thicker and less able to wash teeth clean
• Some Immune Dis­or­ders: cer­tain auto-immune dis­eases also attack your saliva glands, dry­ing up your saliva

If you are expe­ri­enc­ing (or have expe­ri­enced) a lot of cav­i­ties, PLEASE don’t assume that it’s just your fate.  There is always a cause, and it can pretty much always be treated.  And THAT will be an upcom­ing post, so stay tuned!

To make an appoint­ment for a Com­pli­men­tary Consultation:

Request an Appoint­ment Online or call us at 704–364-7069.

We’ll look for­ward to meet­ing you soon!