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“Tooth cleaning is especially painful! Sore and painful!”
“Teeth are especially sensitive after scaling! Afraid of cold and heat!”
According to the audience feedback in these two days, today to talk about the above two problems. It is the relationship between scaling and tooth sensitivity. Xu Tongkai, Department of General Oral Surgery, Peking University Stomatological Hospital
First of all, when I was in the United States, I was a little bit uncomfortable with one aspect of dental care: Americans are very “delicate” and ask for anesthesia no matter what they do. They are not at all averse to anesthesia, and they are particularly fearful of all the pain they may experience during dental visits, and must be treated under local anesthesia, even though the pain caused by this operation seems to me to be minimal.
But Americans never ask for anesthesia during a dental cleaning!
I guess this goes some way to show that scaling is not so terrible. At least, if you get “used” to it, it’s not that scary.
I would like to clarify that today is not strictly a disinformation, because scaling is really unpleasant. This is caused by the purpose and method of scaling. As I said in the last book, scaling is to remove the dirt from the teeth, mainly tartar. As shown below.
And the easiest place for tartar to grow is those locations that are not easy to clean, such as the junction of teeth and gums shown in the picture on the left. This junction is also the junction between the white and hard enamel of the teeth and the tender and sensitive roots of the teeth. This is shown in the red circle in the figure below. Even in the absence of periodontal disease, touching this location with a metal instrument can cause some discomfort.
However, this discomfort should be tolerable. I hope you can find the courage to do so.
After the scaling, many people report that their teeth have become more sensitive than before. This kind of comrades are generally already suffering from different degrees of periodontitis, similar to the picture below.
The left side of this picture is the normal periodontal situation, the gums protect the fragile roots of the teeth well, isolated from all kinds of hot and cold external stimuli; the right side is the case of periodontitis, due to the long-term pressure of tartar and gum inflammation, the gums choose the “enemy in my retreat” tactic, began to shrink. Once the gums recede, the roots of the teeth should be exposed, but the process is slow, “I retreat and the enemy advances”, and the gums recede while the roots are covered by tartar.
Although tartar is dirty and harmful, it is, after all, insulating the roots from external stimuli. So, when the tartar has been growing silently for five or ten years, once the tartar is suddenly washed off and the gums have receded, the fragile roots are once again directly exposed to the mouth, and once again directly tasting spicy hot pot, Haagen Dazs, cold Coke… Teeth on the happy collapse, sharp and brief severe pain began.
So scaling is only a trigger for tooth sensitivity, the real root cause is periodontal disease.
And if you are afraid and unwilling to clean your teeth because you are afraid of sensitivity, then it will lead to more and more periodontal disease and eventually loose and lost teeth.
Because there is a way to control tooth sensitivity!
As I said earlier, the exposure of the roots of the teeth is the root cause of tooth sensitivity, and many elderly people have very serious gum recession, the roots of the teeth are exposed, and they are not sensitive. Why is this? Because the tooth roots have adapted.
As shown in the picture, freshly exposed tooth roots such as the left have many channels to transmit external stimuli to the dental nerve; and over time, these channels are closed, as shown on the right. At this point you are not afraid of the cold. This time varies from person to person and usually takes a few weeks.
There are now many anti-allergy toothpastes that can greatly speed up this process and get rid of your tooth sensitivity quickly. For example, the Comfortista series of toothpastes, Colgate Specialized Anti-Allergies, Crest Allergy Seven Effects, etc. All of them have been studied by many people and they all work.
So to the girl / old convention a dentist dental cleaning is not enough, to advance the anti-sensitive toothpaste is also ready to be qualified!
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