You may be confused by the phrasing “dying tooth.” Unlike many other parts of your body, it’s not obvious to many that your tooth is alive. It doesn’t grow over time like many things we think of as alive. So let’s dive into how your tooth actually is alive, and how to know when it’s sending out SOS signals.

Your tooth is made up of both hard and soft tissue. The inside of your tooth has a soft pulp, blood flow, and nerves. Check out this blog post for a fun visual that shows this clearly. Surrounding that soft pulp is a semi-hard material called dentin. Dentin helps make up the bulk of your tooth’s structure and protect the sensitive nerves and blood vessels inside the tooth. Enamel is a thin coating over the dentin that is much stronger and add another layer of protection. Enamel helps protect your dentin and pulp from bacteria and decay.

There are two main causes that lead to tooth death; damage and decay.

Tooth decay that has penetrated the enamel and dentin and reached the pulp can cause a tooth to die. When the decay reaches the pulp it creates a pathway for bacteria to infect the pulp. Healthy pulp will respond to the infect like every other part of your body: with inflammation. The inflammation causes pressure to build up in the tooth and strangle the blood flow to the tooth. For most people, this is incredibly painful. One indication that your tooth may be dying is pain and pressure that feels better when you apply outside pressure to it. If you don’t treat your tooth, eventually the tooth will die and the pain will go away.

Another thing that may cause a dying tooth is trauma to the tooth. If you hit your mouth in a fall or sports you can damage the blood vessels inside the tooth. Your tooth relies on blood flow to keep the tooth healthy, so when there is no more blood flow the tooth will die. This usually happens slowly over time and doesn’t have the same kind of acute pain as when decay reaches the pulp.

If you catch a tooth in the early stages of dying, you have a chance to save the external tooth structure. A root canal can clean out the internal, damaged pulp and replace it with a hard filling that will help protect the structural integrity of the tooth. Keeping as much of the original tooth structure as possible is important for your oral health. Gaps in your smile can cause your jaw bone to deteriorate, surrounding teeth to collapse into the gap, your bite to be uneven, and bacteria to grow and multiply.

If the tooth is very far gone or the outside of the tooth is greatly damaged, your best option is likely to extract the tooth. As we said above, it’s important not to leave gaps in your smile. If you extract an adult tooth, it is recommended to get an implant and crown to help keep your jaw and mouth healthy.

If you’re concerned your tooth is dying, go see your dentist as soon as possible. The sooner you diagnose a problem, the more options you have available to you.

The post How to: Tell If You Have a Dying Tooth appeared first on West One Family Dental.