This might leave you wondering: what options do you have if your enamel is worn or missing? Worn and missing enamel leaves your teeth more susceptible to cavities and decay. Small cavities are no big deal, but if left to grow and fester, they can lead to infections such as painful tooth abscesses. Worn enamel also impacts the appearance of your smile.
Before you start worrying about what to do about worn and missing enamel, first determine whether you have this problem. Look for the following signs:.
Thanks to cosmetic dentistry available at Evanson DDS, you can restore the appearance of eroded teeth with two primary options:. As you pursue treatments for worn and missing enamel, take efforts to prevent further enamel loss:. If you want to treat your worn and missing enamel, or you need help implementing tips to avoid future enamel erosion, please contact Evanson DDS online or call us at What To Do About Worn And Missing Enamel Enamel — the thin, clear outer covering of your teeth — is responsible for protecting your teeth from daily use, including chewing, biting and grinding.
Identify if Your Enamel is Eroded Worn and missing enamel leaves your teeth more susceptible to cavities and decay.
It is sensitive, and is protected by enamel on the crown portion and cementum on the roots. It is nourished by the pulp. The pulp chamber is the innermost portion of the tooth, lying beneath the dentine and extending from the crown to the tip of the root. The pulp chamber holds the pulp, which is made up of soft tissue.
It contains blood vessels to supply blood and nutrients to the tooth to keep it alive, and nerves to enable the tooth to sense temperature. It also contains small lymph vessels carrying white blood cells to the tooth to help fight bacteria. The cementum is a layer of hard tissue that covers the root of the tooth.
It is roughly as hard as bone but considerably softer than enamel. The connective tissues attach to the periodontal ligament, and through this bind the roots of the tooth to the gums and jaw alveolar bone. The root canal also called the pulp canal is the open space inside the root where the pulp extends from the pulp chamber. Blood vessels and nerves from surrounding outside tissue enter the pulp through the root canal.
The periodontal ligament is comprised of bundles of connective tissue fibres. One end of each bundle is attached to the cementum covering the root of the tooth. The fibres on the other end anchor the tooth root to the jaw alveolar bone and act as shock absorbers, allowing the tooth to withstand the forces of biting and chewing.
Accessory canals are smaller channels that branch off from the main root canal through the dentine to the periodontal ligament.
They are usually found near the root end of the tooth apex. They supply blood vessels and nerves to the pulp. The apical foramen is the tiny opening at the tip of each root. This is what blood vessels and nerves from surrounding outside tissue pass through to enter the tooth. The alveolar bone is the jaw bone that surrounds and supports the root of the tooth. It contains the tooth sockets within which the tooth roots are embedded.
They are the first set of teeth we receive and will eventually fall out and be replaced with a second set. Primary teeth start to form when the baby is in the womb, but start to come through the gums erupt when the child is between 6 — 12 months old.
Children should have their complete set by 3 years old. Teeth tend to erupt in parallel, so for example the top molar on the left side should grow in at about the same time as the top molar on the right. In adult dentition the second set of teeth the 8 primary molars are replaced by the premolar or bicuspid teeth. The 12 adult molars erupt grow up from the gums behind the primary teeth and do not replace any; giving a total of 32 teeth.
The adult dentition is therefore made up of four incisors, two canines, four premolars and six molars in each jaw. Primary teeth are smaller, have more pointed cusps and are a whiter colour than permanent teeth. They also have thinner enamel and dentine so are more prone to wear, and have relatively large pulp chambers and small delicate roots. The crown is the top part that is exposed and visible above the gum gingiva. The root of a tooth descends below the gum line anchoring the tooth in the mouth.
The pulp chamber is the innermost portion of the tooth. Accessory canals are smaller channels that branch off from the main root canal. The general information provided by VC Dental is intended as a guide only. It is not to be taken as personal, professional advice. Before making any decision regarding your dental or medical health, it is important to consult with your dentist or medical practitioner.
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Eating candy is a fun indulgence, but having a dentist drill holes in your teeth is a recipe for pain. But our precious teeth are both extremely durable and vulnerable to a high-sugar diet.
So what makes the enamel so tough and protective for our teeth but susceptible to sweet treats and sugar? In simple terms, tooth enamel is kind of like a rock. Apatites are a group of calcium phosphate compounds, with the generic formula Ca 5 PO 4 3 X. The identity of the X ion determines the specific type of apatite. The outside of the enamel, which dentists refer to as the skin of the teeth, is also called aprismatic enamel.
Below the aprismatic enamel are the outer and inner enamel. And these rods are woven together in different 3-D structures. Outer enamel rods are mostly aligned parallel to one another, Joester says. In the inner enamel, the rods are organized in decussated layers, meaning the rods in each layer are at a different angle relative to the ones above and below, somewhat like the arrangement of wood fibers in plywood layers—but at alternating specific angles. This decussation makes the enamel stronger, Joester says, just as it does in plywood.
A single rod consists of bundles of thousands of whisker-shaped hydroxyapatite crystals. These crystals are several micrometers long but only about 50 nm wide, says Pupa Gilbert , who works on the properties of biominerals at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
She and her research group have performed molecular dynamics simulations on hydroxyapatite crystals and found that the crystals inside the rods are not all lined up. Instead, they are misoriented, meaning the crystals gradually change their orientation with respect to one another, similar to a lever pivoting on a fulcrum. This structure makes the enamel resistant to fracture, through a mechanism called crack deflection, Gilbert says.
The misoriented crystals give no straight path for cracks to propagate along, since energy gets dispersed each time the crack reaches the boundary between individual crystals.
Her group found that the amount of misorientation strongly correlates with the hardness and stiffness of the enamel. However, having no misorientation or a large misorientation means cracks can propagate through the interfaces between the crystals, Gilbert says.
In enamel whose crystals have only a small degree of misorientation, cracks are deflected. While arrangements of both the rods and the crystals inside them add to the strength of tooth enamel, this biomaterial is even more complex.
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