70A YorkTown Road, Sandhurst, Berkshire, GU47 9BT
Acid erosion is a big worry for our dentist as daily we see how overconsumption of acidic foods and drinks can cause untold damage to our patients teeth. When acidic foods and drinks briefly touch teeth, the body’s saliva can protect the teeth preventing tooth wear. If there is excess acid from the stomach (heart burn) or with the overconsumption of juices or acidic fizzy drinks, this can cause irreversible damage to the teeth causing tooth wear. Please note that tooth wear is the loss of tooth surface that is not caused by decay or trauma. Tooth wear can affect the enamel, dentine or pulp of a tooth.
Tooth wear is nearly always a combination of factors and they are listed below:
Attrition
This is the mechanical wearing down of the chewing surfaces of teeth caused by excessive tooth to tooth contact such as in bruxism. Attrition causes teeth to lose their cusps and become flat and unsightly and sensitive to sweets & hot and cold drinks.
Treatment for Attrition
Abrasion
Abrasion is the wearing down of tooth surface by incorrect brushing technique and perhaps through the use of a hard brush.
Abrasion causes the gums to recede and exposes the dentine on the root surfaces of teeth which is unsightly as its yellow in colour and can make the teeth more sensitive to air.
Treatment of Abrasion
Erosion
Erosion is the loss of tooth through exposure to acidic substances which dissolve away the surface of tooth. Fizzy drinks and citrus fruit juices have high acid content and can cause erosion. Acidic fruits such as oranges, lemons and grapefruits can also cause erosion.
Certain medical problems also cause erosion. These conditions are:
Treatment of Erosion
With tooth wear, it’s very important that the cause of the tooth wear is correctly identified. For example, If the patient suffers from gastric induced Erosion but this is incorrectly identified as Attrition, then the use of night guard treatment can cause more damage to the teeth by holding gastric acids on the tooth surface for a longer time.
Also some patients suffer from more than one type of tooth wear. Their tooth wear may be caused by a combination of factors. Simply treating one type of wear and ignoring the other types at work, will not stop the damage to the patients teeth.
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