Author: Marc

What is the Remedy for Sensitive Teeth?

Answer From Marc L, Montgomery, D.D.S.

If you notice new or increased tooth sensitivity and it doesn’t go away in about 30 seconds, visit your dentist.

A professional can diagnose the underlying cause and not leave you at risk. A correct and early diagnosis is your best remedy for sensitive teeth. The solution will vary depending on the cause. Feeling sharp or temporary pain in your teeth is your signal to take immediate action. Constant throbbing tooth pain can be a significant distraction and prevent you from doing other things, such as working productively and sleeping. The sharp pain usually requires immediate dental assistance. Don’t wait until it is consistent pain.

To gain the most from this article, we’ll start by answering basic questions.

What is Tooth Sensitivity?

Tooth sensitivity is a type of tooth pain that is often called toothache. It refers to the symptom of discomfort or pain coming from a tooth (or teeth). In the world of dentistry, it is known as dentin hypersensitivity. It is a painful experience that happens when the inner (dentin) layer of your tooth gets exposed.

You can be observant of which daily activities cause you to feel tooth pain. If performing ordinary activities like flossing, brushing, or eating causes unbearable pain, call your dentist immediately.

What makes a person aware of dental hypersensitivity?

Things that may trigger your awareness of a dental hypersensitivity issue:

• When you brush your teeth.
• When you are chewing (and if it is something sticky or hard).
• If you are drinking something hot or cold.
• If air suddenly hits your teeth.
• If touching your cheek near a sensitive tooth.
• If it occurs when the problem tooth touches another tooth (above or below).
• If an older crown is loose.
• A too-aggressive tooth bleaching or whitening process.

Oral sensitivity to hot and cold shouldn’t be ignored since it can be a signal of an abscess, cavity, inflamed tooth pulp, cracked tooth or receding gums.

Will Tooth Sensitivity go Away?

Tooth sensitivity can come and go over time. A person can be misleading about the severity of an issue by relying on over-the-counter desensitizing kinds of toothpaste without seeing their dentist. They can block off the nerve endings in the exposed dentin and leave the cause of your tooth discomfort undiagnosed. In many cases, this means that the source of your tooth pain is likely to get worse over time.

A dental patient may experience some normal teeth sensitivity after fillings, teeth cleanings, a smile design, and dental restoration placement. Sensitivity caused by a dental procedure is common, temporary, and usually goes away in two-four weeks or more. For example, a diabetic patient or someone with an additional health complexity issue may need longer.

Sensitivity following oral procedures may require additional dental appointments to ensure that the healing process is well underway. If not, our dental team may seal or fill around the neck of an exposed tooth at your gum line. By covering exposed dentine, it has a good chance of resolving. In more extensive cases needing restorative dental procedures, it may be helpful to root-fill the tooth.

What Causes Tooth Sensitivity?

Common factors that cause tooth discomfort:

• A cavity.
• Plaque buildup.
• Worn or thinning tooth enamel.
• If something cracked or chipped your tooth.
• An older tooth filling that wears out.
• Receding gums or if you are developing periodontal (gum) disease.
• Tooth sensitivity due to a recent dental implant that is still stabilizing.
• Flossing too aggressively.
• The continuous use of mouthwash that contains acid.
• If something is stuck in between your teeth, or Invisalign aligners.

Dentin hypersensitivity may cause tooth pain when tubules found within dentin become exposed, most commonly caused by gingival recession or enamel wear. Tooth sensitivity is a common complaint of dental patients. “Studies have demonstrated dentinal hypersensitivity to affect 10–30% of the population,” according to Danielle Clark, writing for NIH. The October 31, 2020 Non-surgical management of tooth hypersensitivity article discusses medical theories regarding sensitivity.

For individuals seeking a deeper understanding, the ‘hydrodynamic theory’, proposed by Brannstrom and Astrom, considers the following.

“…thermal, osmotic or physical stimuli create movement of fluid within the dentinal tubules, causing the activation of nerve endings. These nerve endings are thought to be at the border of the dentin and the pulp. The activation of nerve endings causes a distinguishing sharp and rapid pain, and many treatments have been created to relieve these symptoms.”

No one solution fits every person’s needs. At Montgomery Dental Care we review appropriate treatment options for dentinal hypersensitivity that are based on your individual situation. To establish the best treatment plan we consider the initial cause of the sensitivity and your risk factors. As with all oral health conditions, we start with determining the cause and then select the least invasive option available with the highest probability of a successful outcome.

Does Demineralization of Dental Enamel Cause Sensitive Teeth?

Yes. A demineralization process occurs before a tooth begins to decay and form cavities or other problems. Plaque build-up breaks down tooth enamel which contributes to demineralization, which makes the tooth’s interior dentin and sensitive root more vulnerable.

“Tooth demineralization takes seconds to begin, while tooth remineralization can take hours. When demineralization is overtaking remineralization, we risk sensitivity and damage to the tooth structure, especially when acidic foods and drinks contain refined sugar. Statistics show that one out of every eight Americans suffer from teeth sensitivity—otherwise known as dentinal hypersensitivity—but few of us talk to a dentist about it.” – James Keddington DDS, assistant professor and section head of dental conservation and restoration at the University of Utah School of Dentistry

Keddington points out that sour candy often has a pH similar to that of battery acid! If that is your go-to treat, you may want to replace it. The same is true with drinking soda. “Each sip leads to increased demineralization,” according to the 17 December 2017 The Perils of Sensitive Teeth article.

Talk to your dentist if you experience dentinal hypersensitivity

You may be doing everything you can think of to maintain good oral hygiene and eliminate a high intake of acidic foods, and still experience a tooth reacting to hot or cold. Talk with your doctor. Simple solutions and ruling out more serious symptoms can keep you smiling.

What might my Dentist Recommend to Reduce Tooth Sensitivity?

There are several helpful dental procedures that typically reduce sensitivity:

1. Dental bonding is useful to overlay and protect exposed root surfaces.
2. Surgical gum graft.
3. Tooth fluoride varnishes that are professionally applied to your exposed tooth roots.
4. Dentin sealers that add a protective cover to exposed teeth root surfaces.
5. Root canal.

Next, we’ll cover each procedure in more in-depth.

1. Desensitizing or dental bonding:

Occasionally, exposed root surfaces can be treated by applying bonding resin to the sensitive root surfaces. A local anesthetic might be needed. Dental bonding will use that extra layer of the composite coating to keep extreme temperatures away from the enamel, thus eliminating severe sensitivity. The composite resin will bond with the enamel and ensure that it is protected from anything that might cause discomfort or harm.

2. Surgical gum graft:

If your tooth root experiences receeding gum tissue, a small amount of tissue can be taken from elsewhere in your mouth and attached where needed. This can protect exposed roots and reduce sensitivity. Gum grafting surgery is used to permanently covers exposed tooth roots, This helps to reduce discomfort, restore the gum to good health, and improve appearance.

3. Professional tooth fluoride varnishes:

Fluoride treatments come in liquid, gel, foam, or varnish formats. Tooth fluoride varnishes are brushed onto your teeth or placed in a small tray that conveniently fits over your teeth. Fluoride is actually a naturally occurring mineral that helps prevent cavities; it can even reverse the initial stages of tooth enamel breakdown. For people with sensitivity issues, it may be helpful for tooth enamel erosion.

4. Dentin sealers:

Dental erosion happens when the surface quality of a person’s teeth is lost after touching acid. Dental erosion is preventable with a good diet, oral hygiene, and regular dental cleanings. Individuals experiencing more severe dentinal hypersensitivity may have dentin sealers recommended by their dentist. They are thin plastic coatings applied to your molars, root surfaces, exposed dentin, and/or gum recession to reduce sensitivity where food is likely to contact the pits and fissures when chewing.

5. Root canal:

If your sensitive teeth generate consistent and severe pain, and other treatments aren’t effective, your dentist may recommend a root canal. This is a common dental procedure used to treat problems in the tooth’s soft core (dental pulp). Broadly, it’s considered the most successful technique for eliminating tooth sensitivity.

If you are experiencing severe pain or pain in one or two teeth, your dentist may use a process called differential diagnosis. This helps to determine the source of your dental hypersensitivity. Visual exams, X-rays, and CBCT scans for diagnosing tooth problems are part of the process. Differential diagnosis simply means that your dentist will ask you questions about your pain and dental habits. It’s part of the process of elimination to discover the exact tooth — that’s causing the pain and why.

How can I Avoid Tooth Sensitivity?

Ways you can reduce sensitive tooth pain:

• Maintain good oral health.
• Drink only water before bed.
• Try desensitizing toothpastes.
• Avoid grinding your teeth.
• Increase dental checkups as you age.

Most importantly, going forward, take better care of your teeth.

Maintain good oral health: Your dentist will review your oral health history with you. Your daily diet and at-home oral care routine also play a significant role in keeping overly sensitive tooth issues at bay. Consider taking extra care when eating or drinking acidic foods and drinks. If you like carbonated drinks, citrus fruits, coffee, and/or wine — all of these can remove small amounts of tooth enamel over time. If you drink acidic liquids multiple times per day, use a straw to limit contact with your teeth. After consuming an acidic substance, drink water to balance the acid levels in your mouth. Or better yet, go brush and floss your teeth.

Drink only water before bed: Never drink something other than water after you brush before bed and before falling asleep. This can leave something acidic in direct contact with your tooth enamel all night.

Try desensitizing toothpastes: contain compounds such as potassium nitrate or strontium chloride. These ingredients work to reduce pain signals transmitted between the surface of your tooth and the inside nerves. Commonly, several applications of toothpaste are needed before you will feel a noticeable difference. Prescription-strength tubes of toothpaste are an option for more severe and prolonged cases of tooth sensitivity. Ask our dentist to recommend a toothpaste for your needs.

Avoid grinding your teeth: Many people are unaware that they are grinding or clenching their teeth while sleeping. Regular dental checkups help your dentist identify if something signals a protection problem. Your dentist may suggest wearing a mouthguard at night if the problem is tooth grinding.

Increase dential checkups as you age: Tooth sensitivity is a common problem as people age. Tooth enamel naturally thins and can expose a person’s dentin to outside elements. “The risk of cavities, root caries, and more commonly observed tooth sensitivity or dry mouth increases with age,” according to NIH’s article on Oral health in the elderly patient and its impact on general well-being. As gum tissues may recede, good daily dental hygiene is vital to maintain good oral health and quality of life in older people.

SUMMARY

Tooth pain shouldn’t interfere with your ability to enjoy a great day. Dr. Marc L. Montgomery is an expert in the different treatments available and can best decide which treatments are appropriate and when they should be utilized. We’re here to help you determine what’s causing your sensitive teeth and recommend the best treatment to address the issue.

Call 651-738-1880 to gain the right answer for you!

Tips to Care for Dental Implant Restorations

Requests for dental implants are one of the most asked-about advancements in modern dentistry.

Once you’ve made the investment and are enjoying the benefits, taking care of dental implants becomes a priority. For long-term simulation of their proper functioning to improve your appearance and natural chewing functions, this article will help you know what to do. First, anyone eager to talk about dental implants in Woodbury, MN with a trained dentist, may want to understand this from the onset.

Montgomery Dental Care helps ensure that you continue to retain the benefits of your dental implants year after year. However, the care you put into your oral health and hygiene impacts your success. While your dental implants are engineered to last a lifetime, your daily brushing, flossing, and chewing habits have a significant role in ensuring that they remain in premium condition.

Remember, most implant issues that occur can be avoided by taking early preventive steps.

Ongoing Patient Care for Dental Implant Restorations

Adhere to the following ways to protect your oral implants:

1. Adhere to Post-Operative Dental Implant Instructions.
2. Keep Your Routine Dental Appointments.
3. Diligently Brush, Floss, and Rinse.
4. Limit Hard and Sticky Food Intake.
5. Quit Smoking and Excessive Alcohol Use.
6. Keep Post-Implant Surgery Swelling to a Minimum.
7. Alert Your Dentist if Concerns Arise.

Below are several ways to care for one or more dental implants so they can continue to give you the smile of your dreams. Extra care during the first 3-4 days post-implant placement is especially important.

1. Adhere to Post-Operative Dental Implant Instructions

After undergoing dental implant surgery, you will receive a list of post-operative recommendations. These will include anything from what types of food to eat, to what not to do, such as using tobacco products for several weeks. You should follow these instructions to the letter and call a dentist for clarification if you are confused.

If you’re prescribed pain medication after your implant placement – follow instructions to keep the pain at a minimum. You can be comfortable through this entire process. Prioritizing post-op guidelines helps reduce the risk of implant failure due to avoidable infection.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is to avoid disturbing the wound. Try not to touch the wound or spit for a few days after surgery.

2. Keep Your Routine Dental Appointments

Regular, scheduled oral health checkups ensure that no hidden issues are occurring. Dental implants are highly regarded as sturdy and dependable, yet it is best to have them checked by your implant dentist twice a year. Everything from your teeth, gums, surrounding bone health, inner cheeks, and tongue are evaluated. Your dental cleanings and checkups are your best means of early intervention that keeps your oral health and implant costs in check.

Follow-up dental appointments after dental implant surgery may involve:

• Radiographic CBCT examination of the implants.
• Clinical examination of the peri-implant tissues.
• Evaluating dental implant stability.
• Removing any implant-retained plaque and calculus.
• Establishing maintenance intervals, for example, every 3 months in the first year.

A resonance frequency analysis (RFA) or similar test can measure primary implant stability and monitor implant stability over time. Your dentist not only assesses the stiffness of the bone-implant interface but also makes the detection of any increase or decrease in implant stability easier to detect.

3. Diligently Brush, Floss, and Rinse

This is an essential part of ensuring that your implant investment will keep giving back. The value of simple, proper, and through daily brushing and flossing cannot be overstated. If your dentist recommends an oral rinsing product, follow instructions diligently. Like all positive routines, once a healthy self-care routine is established after receiving dental implants, this home maintenance becomes easy.

The cleaner your teeth and gums are, the healthier your dental implants will be, too. As people age, extra care should be given to both hard and soft tissues in the mouth. A salty mouthwash rise helps to keep bacteria away. Ask your dentist for advice so that you don’t floss or rinse too aggressively. Brushing your teeth and the healing abutments is no problem. That said, be gentle initially with brushing the surgical areas.

Dental floss may also be useful to deliver antiseptic agents to the implant on a daily basis. Floss can be used like a “shoe-shine rag” movement to facilitate optimal home care procedures around the abutment post.

If you are concerned about what exactly is proper oral hygiene practice due to postsurgical fear of causing damage, your dentist can help you strike a balance. Ask questions and learn the difference between overzealous home care trying to stay absolutely plaque-free, and a lack of oral care.

4. Limit Hard and Sticky Food Intake

Some people struggling to overcome habits of biting their nails, chewing on ice, or favoring hard foods are more at risk of damaging their dental implant restorations. Either can cause damage which means potential additional dental appointments for repairs or replacement. In the first few weeks after implant placement, make a strong effort to avoid sticky and hard foods that could disturb the implant(s) placed in your jaw. Examples of food to temporarily avoid are popcorn, hard candies, peanuts, caramel, seeds, and hard nuts.

As a means of added caution, avoid consuming high amounts of acidic foods, such as tomatoes and citrus fruits. It’s best to also temporarily avoid pithy foods that tend to get stuck between your teeth, like fresh grapefruit. Food particles that get “stuck” increase the risk of infection. Aggressively dislodging them within the first few days should be avoided. As always, don’t open packaging, cans, or bottle tops with your implant teeth.

These food types don’t have to be permanently eliminated from your diet. The reason for caution is that although your implants are permanent, the crowns they support are vulnerable to damage by hard foods during the first few weeks after implant surgery. Once they have sufficiently healed and stabilized, you can return to enjoying crunchy foods.

5. Avoid Smoking and Excessive Alcohol Intake

Moderation is the key to much of daily living. However, smoking can not only disrupt your dental implant healing process, but it also compromises your bone structure and how the implants fuse with the bone. For most people, it is acceptable to enjoy alcoholic beverages occasionally, however, drinking excessive alcohol is known to increase chances of oral issues.

6. Keep Post-Implant Surgery Swelling to a Minimum

To speed up your recovery, it helps to minimize swelling around the implant. It may help to use an ice pack. Swelling often peaks by the third to fourth day; then it starts to subside. Apply an ice pack to one side of your face for 10 minutes; transfer it to the opposite side for an additional 10 minutes. Continue icing your jaw for at least 24 hours.

The differences in the supporting structure of the implant make them more susceptible to inflammation, swelling, and bone loss if plaque accumulates.

Some automated/sonic toothbrushes with multiple brush tips may result in gingival abrasion from prolonged or aggressive use post-implant surgery. Your dentist can recommend a toothbrush shown to not cause hard or soft tissue damage, which effectively reduces plaque and inflammation around the adjacent periodontal tissues.

7. Alert Your Dentist if Concerns Arise

In the unusual event that soft tissue surrounding your dental implants becomes red, swollen, or irritated, call your dentist. The sooner loose dental implants are fixed, the better. Dental patients experiencing peri-implantitis typically respond to treatment when solutions are put in place early. As with all aspects of your oral health, it involves a close relationship with a trusted dentist.

Most concerns can be addresses before they become issues. “Preventive maintenance appointments should be scheduled every 3 to 4 months and a periapical/vertical bitewing radiograph at 6 to 8 months should be compared with the baseline to assess crestal bone changes, which occur often during the first year of loading”, Minkle Gulati, wrote in the July 9, 2014 NIH article.

“The long-term success of implants is fundamentally dependent upon both the patient’s maintenance of effective home care and on the dental team’s administration of professional prophylaxis procedures in the dental office. Hence, patients are considered co-therapists in the maintenance therapy and their contribution is indispensable, especially for the long-term success of dental implants.

Dental implants require constant maintenance and monitoring, which further involves assessment of the patient’s general and oral health, professional implant maintenance, and diligent patient home care as critical factors that will ensure the long-term success of implants and a predictable replacement for natural teeth.” – Implant Maintenance: A Clinical Update by the National Institute of Health

Best of Dental Implant Care in Woodbury, MN

The bottom line is that caring for dental implant restorations adequately is vital to increasing their lifespan. Typically, they survive a lifetime of use; and the nice thing is that they can be cared for like natural teeth. Each dental implant restoration appointment has a purpose; you’ll go home with the needed instructions for each step in the process.

Your dental implant investment is a wise choice. Most often, it is a practical and permanent solution for missing or damaged teeth. Whether you received a single implant or a full arch prosthetic supported by multiple implants, your care, and maintenance ensure longevity. This way, you can take pleasure in the advantages of having dental implants for decades.

Are you interested in knowing all your choices when it comes to Dental Implants? Contact your Woodbury, MN dental implant specialist – Marc L. Montgomery, DDS!

Call 651-738-1880 to speak with Dr. Montgomery today!