ASK THE DENTIST

Dr. Jim Ellis uses this section to answer the most commonly asked questions from his patients.

Dental Movies

There are many people that love to talk to me about movies that have dentists in them. Unfortunately, many of these movie dentists simply perpetuate stereotypes about real world dentists. Lets talk about a few of these famous dentists, what they are known for, and if the things they did have any application to real world dentists.

1. Number one on the dentist movie list has to be Little Shop of Horrors. Everyone that has seen that movie wants to know one thing when they see a dentist, do you suck on the laughing gas like that guy did. The answer to that is no. I got the gas when I was in school so that I could feel the effects of it but other then that I don’t walk around with a gas mask on my face getting high. Now, with that said there are confirmed cases of dentists dying from laughing gas. What usually happens is the dentist has had a rough day. Everybody leaves the office except for him/her. The dentist decides a little laughing gas before he/she goes home will brighten their mood and help them forget about their day. Problem is there is no else there to monitor the levels of gas and to remove it if the oxygen in the room, for some reason, were to deplete to a dangerous level. The dentist is found dead sometime in the early hours of the morning after not returning home the night before. Cause of death is oxygen deprivation.
2. Number two has to be Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Everyone loves Herbie the little elf that didn’t want to make toys anymore. He wanted to be a dentist. He is banished to the island of misfit toys and attacked by the abominable snow monster on his way there. Herbie is a good movie dentist because he doesn’t actually do anything to make dentists seem more horrible then they already are.
3. Number three is Finding Nemo the Disney children’s movie. There is a scene in that movie where the Dentist starts a root canal and the patient is jumping up and down in the chair screaming bloody murder. All of the patients in the waiting room hear this and start getting big eyes and scared looks on their faces. I can tell you right now that the only screaming in my office is when I find out that Brigham Young University (BYU) has won at some kind of sporting event. If patients start screaming there is something wrong. If they are children we may try another day to do the procedure or we may send them to pediatric specialist to be sedated. If it is an adult screaming then we may do the same thing. Try another day or sedate the patient. There is really no reason patients should be screaming and grabbing the chair while being worked on.
4. Number four is not a movie. It is the Bill Cosby comedy skit from many years back. he talks about his big fat lip and drooling all over everything. That is actually pretty true to life and I find that one pretty funny. When you leave the office you will probably feel like you have a big fat lip and you may drool. There is no way around it.

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

I found a recent article in Time magazine to be very interesting. It talked about the marketing of breakfast cereals. Now, most of us know that many breakfast cereals can actually be bad for you. Many are loaded with partially hydrogenated oils, fats, and sugars. And I am not necessarily condemning the makers of these cereals for their content. There are lots of bad things for you out there we just have to choose not to buy them. In America, we have the right to manufacture products we want, seeing that they meet certain basic standards of course.

What I did find a little disturbing both as a health care provider and as a parent was the fact that some of these cereal manufactures, who know exactly what is in their products and how bad it can be for you, chose to advertise on children’s television programs. And that not only did they simply advertise on the television but their ads included information about web sites children could go to for games and other activities for the particular cereal being advertised. The intent is, obviously, to make the child ask the parent for the cereal.

The numbers about this advertising were very interesting. In a years time, preschoolers ages 2-5 see an average of 507 cereal ads designed strictly for children. During the period of this time that the study was conducted the researchers found that the number one most advertised cereal of them all was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The sad thing was that the researchers also made a scale of healthy to unhealthy cereals and placed each cereal on. The numbers ranged from 34 (worst) to 72 (best). And C.T.C. got a whopping 37. So one of the worst was promoted the highest.

As noted earlier, the internet is also a way that the worst cereals are promoted. The website www.millsberry.com is a site for children to go have fun. The site gets 750,000 unique web site views a month. The site is fun and has some neat things for kids but the cereals Lucky Charms (ranked 36) and Trix (38) are both advertised right on the front page.

In some countries, it is illegal to promote healthy food to children. In England, the only cereal that could be advertised to kids would be Frosted Mini-Wheats. And that is due to the high fiber content.

To summarize, I just found it sad that companies are marketing things that would make children unhealthy, directly to the children. If you want to do it to the parents, fine. Hopefully, they have enough common sense not to buy it. But to make a parent feel like a bad guy for telling a child, that has been submerged in advertising for horribly unhealthy cereal, that he/she can’t have it is just not right.

A Brief History of Dentistry

Some of the first information about dentistry comes to us about 5000 B.C. In many countries there are writings that try to explain the origins of tooth aches. One of the more popular beliefs was that there was a worm that would get into your tooth and cause it to hurt. While this idea may seem ridiculous to some it is astonishing how close it is to real life, for it actually is a creature that aides in causing tooth decay and thus teeth to hurt. These creatures are microscopic organisms and not your garden variety earth worms but non the less those early thinkers actually got very close to the cause of tooth decay all those years ago.

Around 300 B.C., people began to write texts on the topic of how to treat certain tooth ailments. Even Hippocrates, and Aristotle got in the act as their times came around. There are treatments listed for the proper ways to extract teeth, how to fight gum disease, and even how to wire loose teeth together so that they will be more stable. That too is impressive. Still to this day we will wire teeth together if the situation calls for it.

Some of the scarier moments of early dentistry come to us from the fact that tooth extraction used to be a favorite form of torture for those people in charge of such activities. And before dentistry was a recognized profession taking teeth bad teeth out used to be done by local barbers. That must have been fun.

As we moved a little closer to the present day, we began trying more and more techniques in order to save teeth. Mercury fillings, filling root canals with silver rods, and overlaying teeth with gold were attempted.

As with everything, technology marches on. The knowledge and materials we have acquired over last couple of decades about dentistry has easily surpassed everything we knew about the subject for the past 7000 years. Today dentistry is full of lasers to aid in solving gum disease, implanting titanium screws into the jaw bone to replace unsaveable teeth, and scientists are actually looking into the genomic code of human beings to see if manipulating our DNA could somehow make our teeth more resistant to cavities.

To say that, we can make everybody happy no matter their oral condition is a bit of a stretch. However, we can get a lot closer to that goal then we have ever been able to do at any time in the history of dentistry.

Fluoride in Infant Formula

This month is the Journal of the American Medical Association, they had an article about infant formula. There has been a concern that babies were getting too much fluoride in their formula so a study was conducted.

Let me start off by addressing the concern that you should be getting fluoride at all. The answer to that is yes. I am a strong backer of fluoride supplementation. In fact in this article the JADA stated, Exposure to systemic (taken internally) fluoride pre-eruptive tooth development, and to topical fluoride post eruption, reduces the risk of dental caries. So it is an established fact that fluoride does help prevent cavities. However, too much fluoride can have side effects. Just as too much iron or too much sodium can hurt your body, but both are essential to good health.

The name for what happens when someone ingests too much fluoride, when young, is termed fluorosis. What this means is that there is a change in the mineral composition of the teeth. The teeth can become hypomineralized and thus more susceptible to decay. The visible changes with fluorosis are color changes. Mild to moderate fluorosis is characterized by patches, or lines, of very white color on the teeth. Whiter teeth may not seem bad but these patches are unnaturally white not to mention weaker then teeth without the patches. Extreme fluorosis can actually result in brown discoloration and even weaker teeth.

So back to the formula.

• Is your baby getting enough fluoride?
• Is your baby getting too much fluoride?

Unfortunately, like most things, the answer depends. First you need to find out how much fluoride your baby needs. For that info you can go to Table 1. Recommended dietary flouride supplement* schedule for more information. This article is by the Centers for disease control and will tell you more then ever wanted to know about fluoride. If you scroll all the way to the very bottom of the article you will find a table that says that for children between the ages of 0-6 months weighing about 16 lbs the daily intake of fluoride needed is between 0.01 mg and 0.7 mg a day. And for children 6-12 months and about 20lbs the intake should be between 0.5 mg and 0.9 mg per day.

So now that you know how much your baby needs, you need to figure out how much they are already getting. And that is not so easy. Is your community water supply fluoridated, do the vitamins your pediatrician gives your child contain fluoride, does your child swallow toothpaste that contains fluoride, etc. etc. You need to look at all of the things your child consumes and check the fluoride content. Add those numbers up. Are they getting enough fluoride already?

If they are then you need to be reading the labels of the formula you are using to make sure that it does NOT contain any added fluoride. If your child is not getting enough fluoride from outside sources then you need to read the labels and get a formula with enough added fluoride to make up the difference.

I know this may be a little confusing but its what needs to be done. In fact, this is what ought to be done with every supplement you take. If you take a multivitamin with 110% of vitamins that you are already getting through your daily food intake then you may be taking too much. The easiest thing to do may be to eliminate all sources of fluoride and then get a supplement from your dentist or pediatrician so you can be as sure as possible about the amounts your child is getting.

My Child’s Tooth Has Turned Black

All parents know that little kids have a tendency to be accident prone. This is especially true as they begin to learn how to walk. Infant’s, and toddler’s, heads are huge as a percentage of their body size when compared to the head to body ratio of adults. To prove this point try a little experiment. Take any 1 year old and try to get them to touch their hands together over the top of their head. If they can even do it at all it will be a real stretch for them. Now, go in front of a mirror and touch your own hands over your head. You will see that you can easily do it and have over a foot of clearance to boot. So basically, if we had the same head body ratio of a toddler we would have heads that would be about 3 feet around. Try walking around with a 3 foot wide head! No wonder the little tikes are always falling down and bumping their noggins.

So, with these big melons our little ones are often seen falling face first. Sometimes, they catch themselves with their foreheads and sometimes they catch themselves with their teeth. Many types of injuries may occur when children catch themselves with their teeth. These include fracture, avulsion, displacement, and intrusion.

Intrusion is one of the most common and will be the only one discussed here. Intrusion is what happens when your toddler hits one tooth harder then the rest and that tooth ends up looking shorter then the others. A slight intrusion of a tooth may not be a big deal. If there is no prolonged bleeding, swelling, or pain there is a good chance that things will be okay. The thing that most parents get all worked up about is the fact that their child’s tooth will discolor. This discoloration can be anything from a slight graying to an almost blackening of the tooth. This discoloration more often then not means that the tooth has died. The trauma to the tooth was so much that the nerve and/or blood supply has been cut off or extremely restricted.

This discoloration will remain with the child until the tooth falls out at its normally appointed time. If you are concerned that your 3-4 year old’s social life will be somehow lessened due to this then there are things that can be done. Little white crowns can be placed on the tooth, or white fillings can be placed on the front of the tooth as well. Both of these solutions work well and can be done rather painlessly.

The other thing to watch out for is damage to the underlying adult tooth. This damage will not be visible on the x-ray and time will only tell if there is any damage done to the permanent teeth once they come in.

Please remember that after any injury involving your teeth it is always a good idea to go see your dentist just in case. And, as noted earlier, intrusion is only one of the things that could happen in a facial trauma. Other forms of tooth injury may occur that are more serious and may need immediate dental treatment.

Breakfast Cereals

I found a recent article in Time magazine to be very interesting. It talked about the marketing of breakfast cereals. Now, most of us know that many breakfast cereals can actually be bad for you. Many are loaded with partially hydrogenated oils, fats, and sugars. And I am not necessarily condemning the makers of these cereals for their content. There are lots of bad things for you out there we just have to choose not to buy them. In America, we have the right to manufacture products we want, seeing that they meet certain basic standards of course.

What I did find a little disturbing both as a health care provider and as a parent was the fact that some of these cereal manufactures, who know exactly what is in their products and how bad it can be for you, chose to advertise on children’s television programs. And that not only did they simply advertise on the television but their ads included information about web sites children could go to for games and other activities for the particular cereal being advertised. The intent is, obviously, to make the child ask the parent for the cereal.

The numbers about this advertising were very interesting. In a years time, preschoolers ages 2-5 see an average of 507 cereal ads designed strictly for children. During the period of this time that the study was conducted the researchers found that the number one most advertised cereal of them all was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The sad thing was that the researchers also made a scale of healthy to unhealthy cereals and placed each cereal on. The numbers ranged from 34 (worst) to 72 (best). And C.T.C. got a whopping 37. So one of the worst was promoted the highest.

As noted earlier the internet is also a way that the worst cereals are promoted. The website www.millsberry.com is a site for children to go have fun. The site gets 750,000 unique web site views a month. The site is fun and has some neat things for kids but the cereals Lucky Charms (ranked 36) and Trix (38) are both advertised right on the front page.

In some countries, it is illegal to promote unhealthy food to children. In England, the only cereal that could be advertised to kids would be Frosted Mini-Wheats. And that is due to the high fiber content.

To summarize, I just found it sad that companies are marketing things that would make children unhealthy, directly to the children. If you want to do it to the parents, fine. Hopefully they have enough common sense not to buy it. But to make a parent feel like a bad guy for telling a child, that has been submerged in advertising for horribly unhealthy cereal, that he/she can’t have it is just not right.

Pacifier use with infants

A neighbor of mine, the other night, asked me to write an article about pacifiers. She said please write an article about how bad pacifiers are for kids over 2 years old so that I can have enough motivation to get my kid off of hers.

First off, are pacifiers inherently bad? No, they are not. Sucking is something that children, and many animals, will begin to instinctively do shortly after being born. Sucking, whether on a bottle or a breast, is how infants get their nutrition and thus survive. So sucking is a completely natural thing to do. And, since sucking helps infants relate to being fed it will naturally bring a calming influence when an infant is upset even if they are not actually eating anything. Therefore, allowing your child to suck on a pacifier for the first couple of years of life isn’t a problem as long as a couple of simple rules are followed.

• Do not use a pacifier strap that is long enough to wrap completely around the babies neck. This is obviously a choking hazard. Keep the straps short.
• Do not dip the pacifier in honey, sugar, or any other substance that you think would entice the baby to suck on it. These substances will it very difficult to get the infant to take the pacifier without them in the future and they will cause the babies teeth to rapidly decay.
• Do not let the baby suck on the pacifier past the age of 4. Sucking a pacifier against baby teeth isn’t a problem but against adult teeth it is a different story. Upper teeth can flare out. Lower teeth can be pushed in and future orthodontic problems can occur.

I know it may be hard but that pacifier needs to be taken away when the first sign kids losing their baby teeth occur, at the latest.

There are many different types of pacifiers out there. Which pacifier you use basically boils down to which pacifier your baby will take. Around my house whatever worked is what we used. There are some pacifiers on the market that say they are endorsed by one society or another. I would simply go online and do my research to determine if those associations actually carry any credibility.

What are Sealants and do my Kids Really Need Them?

The answer to this question is NO. Children don’t need to have sealants placed on their teeth. But, I guess this all depends on your definition of the word needs. Children don’t need to use toothpaste when they brush. A brush and some water will do some good. But using toothpaste will do a much better job. Thus, it is with sealants. You may be okay without them but you will be much better off with them. The ADA recently published a study, among children, showing a 78% decrease in caries incidence over a 2 year period when sealants were placed versus no sealants.

First of all, what is a sealant? A sealant is basically a small filling. The important difference between a filling and sealant is that a sealant is material placed on a tooth before decay happens in order to prevent a cavity. A filling is material placed on/in a tooth after the tooth has already sustained damage due to decay. The material used may even be the exact same material for the sealant or the filling.

This picture illustrates one tooth with a sealant and one tooth without. On the tooth with the sealant, most of the natural tooth structure is still visible. The sealant material simply flows down into the nooks, crannies, grooves, and any other tiny crevices where bugs can hide and cavities can start. The material is placed on the tooth in a runny state and is then cured so that it is hard before you leave the office. Normal chewing can begin immediately.

The usual recipient of a sealant is a child getting their first adult molars (around 6 years old). More sealants are then placed over the second adult molars (around the age of 12). The reason sealants are normally only placed in children and early teens is to assist the child in keeping their teeth cavity free. Kids and early teens are not the greatest when it comes to controlling sugar intake or brushing as they should.

Sealants will chip out as the years go by and are not a life long restoration. It is the hope that the sealants stay in long enough to get the individual to adulthood when they can then take better care of their teeth on their own. This is not to say that you can’t get the sealants put back in as an adult. Insurances won’t pay for them after your teens but it still would help. Sealants, like toothpaste, won’t stop cavities all by themselves. But, they are a great tool in the overall fight to keep you cavity free.

What are Veneers and are they for me?

There is a lot of information out there on the subject of veneers. Since they came on the seen it has almost been a frenzy to pump out infomercials, magazine ads, radio commercials, etc. as fast as possible to corner this new and exciting market.

Let me start off by explaining a little bit about what veneers actually are. The quickest way to do this is to compare a veneer to a fake finger nail. When a women wants to enhance, and/or change in some way, the appearance of her nails she will simply go get an artificial nail applied over her real nail. This is “basically” the story with veneers. When people are dissatisfied with the look of their teeth they can go into the dentist office and get a veneer applied over the top of their natural teeth.

One of the big differences here is that veneers are a far more permanent then are fingernails. Once you get a veneer cemented, with the final cement, you have to destroy them to get them off. This means that you don’t want to just drive by a place that has a banner hung out front advertising “cheap veneers” and swing on in for a set. You need to be absolutely sure of the shape, size, color, and overall look of your veneers before they are finally placed.

Another big difference is that, with some veneers, there are changes that will be made to your teeth that are irreversible. The dentist will use a dental drill to shave, shape, and drill your teeth in preparation to fabricate the veneer. This means that if you end up not liking the veneers you can’t just get them taken off and go back to the old you. The teeth are changed forever. Having said that, there are newer veneers on the market that require no preparation drilling. These veneers can only be used under certain circumstances and have their own drawbacks but you can remove them later on down the road if you are unsatisfied with the look and still have your natural teeth. If you are seriously considering veneers it is a good idea to ask your dentist which type of veneer he/ she chooses to use.

So, what kinds of things can veneers fix? Veneers are tremendously versatile as long as your teeth are relatively straight. If your teeth are severely crowded then veneers are not really a good option. Veneers are a great option to change the color of your teeth if you find that bleaching will not work for you. Veneers are a great idea if you have spaces in between your teeth and you don’t want to go through the hassle of braces. If you have a tooth or two that are inappropriately sized then veneers are good for that as well. The greatest thing about veneers is that they can give a uniform color and look to your smile that would instantly transform mild crowding, spacing, or discoloration that you have been wanting to change for years. If any of this sounds like something you might be interested see your dentist and start asking questions. Veneers might be just the trick to fix what’s been bugging you for years.

Toothpaste Abuse

Okay the term sounds a little funny. Who in their right mind would abuse toothpaste? You can’t get a buzz off of it, it doesn’t make you forget your worries for a while, and having access to it doesn’t make you more popular. So why then would people abuse toothpaste?

Well, for starters word abusedoes not apply here the same way that it would apply for abusing drugs or alcohol. When I use the word “abuse” in the context of toothpaste it simply means; using more of it then you should.

I recently returned from a dental conference where one of the main topics was gum recession. Many of you probably have experienced the aggravation and sensitivity that comes from places in your mouth where your gums no longer cover as much of the tooth as they once did. For years, it has been thought that this recession had something to do with the way you closed your teeth together and/or the hardness of your toothbrush bristles.

Both of these factors will most assuredly still contribute to the problem but there is brand new research that is showing another factor that has previously been unthought of.

This new culprit in recession is the abuse of toothpaste. For years, you have heard your dentist tell you to brush more. So you have done it. And for years toothpaste companies have tried to stick more and more ingredients into their products. Toothpaste commercials are loaded with tag lines about how their particular brand will “whiten your teeth” or “fight plaque” or even “build your enamel”.

All of these things may be true, to one extent or another, but what is also happening here is that toothpastes have become grittier and grittier over time. And this latest research is showing that toothpastes may have gone too far. That the abrasive quality of the pastes, no matter how hard or soft the toothbrush bristles, is leading to a lot more recession then has happened in the past.

So, where does the abuse come in, you may be saying. This sounds like the toothpaste manufacturers problem to me, right? Well, the new research is also showing that people are also using way too much toothpaste to brush their teeth with. This wasn’t that big of a deal in the past but with the pastes now being more and more abrasive it is becoming more of a concern. It happens all the time in our lives. If a little is good then more must be better. A little more laundry detergent, a little more ibuprofen, and don’t forget a little more sugar on the breakfast cereal.

When your dentist says “only use a pea sized amount of toothpaste” he/she means it. Next time, you brush think of how small a pea is. One little pea. That is it. Do not do as the you see on the commercials and place a huge ribbon of toothpaste on your brush. That is a way for the toothpaste manufacturers to get you to use up their product more quickly so you will have to buy more. It’s a really old trick.

This new research, which is not yet out so take this with a grain of salt for now, is suggesting that for people experiencing recession that they don’t use any toothpaste at all during one of their daily brushings. And that during that one particular brushing that they simply dip their brush in listerene or some other type of mouth wash and brush only with that.

Research and innovation are a part of dentistry just like anything else and we are always looking for new ways to solve problems that have previously been hard to solve. I will keep you updated as this research becomes more finalized and the results published.
What do I do if my temporary crown comes off?

This last week I had a patient that had a temporary came off. As I spoke with he and his wife, his wife suggested that I do an article about what should be done if this were to happen to someone else.

The first thing to understand is why we use temporary crowns. The white part of every tooth is called the enamel. This substance is in charge of protecting your tooth. This protection is against decay, biting forces, and temperature changes. When a tooth is prepared for a crown much, if not all, of this enamel layer is removed. This step is necessary in order to create enough room to fabricate a sturdy enough crown to withstand the forces that will be applied to it once it is in your mouth.

Since crowns take a week or two to fabricate we need to protect the tooth in the interim. This protection is accomplished with a temporary crown. A temporary crown has some advantages and some disadvantages.

1. First, temporary crowns are made of plastic. The advantage is that this cuts down on the cost incurred by the patient. If a temporary crown were made of metal, or some other more permanent substance, it would cost more to fabricate. But, being made of plastic also brings into play the risk of the crown fracturing if overly chewed on with hard foods such as nuts or granola.
2. Second, a temporary crown is cemented in place with temporary cement. The advantage is that when a patient comes in they do not have to be numbed up to get it off. If permanent cements were used we would have to use a dental drill to cut the temporary crowns off. We have found that anytime we can spare a patient from having to get a shot or from having that numb feeling that they are appreciative. The disadvantage, of temporary cement, is that sometimes these temporary crowns come off by themselves before it’s time.

With all of the advantages and disadvantages combined it is still, by far, the industry standard to use plastic temporary crowns with temporary cement. I would estimate that only about 1 in 50 people will break or pull off their temporary crowns within the 2 week period between crown preparation and cementation.

So what if you happen to be one of these unlucky folks who breaks their temporary crown or it simply falls off before its time? Well, here are some tips. If you break your crown there is basically nothing you can do. The temporary needs to be remade and you should contact your dentist as soon as possible. You will probably want to avoid heavy chewing and any foods, or drinks, that are of extreme temperature either hot or cold.

If your crown simply comes off, you are in a little better shape then if you had broken it. The reason for this is that you can put your temporary crown back on. When I tell people this the first thing they say is “I don’t know how this goes on”. It may be confusing but there are only 4 possible ways it can fit so one or two attempts of trial and error will usually get you to the correct direction of placement. Try just placing it back on first. If it still slips off try putting something in it like toothpaste. This will, hopefully, create some suction to keep the crown on.

In either of these cases you should contact your dentist immediately. He/she will be able to asses how severe your situation is and act accordingly.

Sucking on Lemons

In the process of writing this article over the past year or so I have talked about a lot of things that can damage your teeth. We have covered candy, soda, energy drinks, etc. But one thing that has come to my attention that we have yet to cover is certain non-junk foods that can damage your teeth. Yes, there are actual foods that, in their complete natural state, can cause your teeth to break down faster then other foods would.

Now, when I say break down I need to clarify. There are several ways that teeth can get into trouble. Usually we talk about cavities. Cavities are a result of bacteria. The kind of tooth trouble we are going to talk about today is called erosion. Erosion is the loss of enamel and dentin caused by actions of acids unrelated to bacteria.

Unlike cavities that usually have a center point where the decay is the deepest erosion happens over a large area of a tooth’s surface and seems to have no epicenter. This erosion can be seen on any surface of any tooth as well.

This pattern of eroding teeth was first seen when exams were done on the teeth of people having the eating disorder bulimia nervosa. In this condition individuals will eat and then force themselves to throw everything up in order to not gain any weight. This constant evacuation of stomach contents can have lots of unwanted side effects. One of the worst effects can be on the teeth. It has been noted in these patients that the tongue side the upper teeth have had most of their enamel eroded off of them. This is due to the stomach acids that they are constantly coming in contact with.

Researchers then wondered if there were any other forms of acid that teeth normally come in contact with that may also cause problems. And as it turns out there are. I only a room to discuss a few here. Two of the top offenders are lemons and limes. They both have a pH of 2.0 which is very acidic and can do lots of damage to the teeth. Grapefruits, apples, and cranberries were close behind with pH counts of 3.2, 3.3, and 2.3 respectively.

You may be thinking that I am now limiting you to bread and water but that is not the case. Any of these foods can be consumed at any time. It is how often they are consumed that is the question. There are people out there that will suck on lemons all day long. Doing something like that would definitely cause some problems for your teeth. Apples may also seem harmless, and normally they are. But when you put apples juice in a child’s sippy cup and they walk around all day sucking on it that will cause problems too.

The take home message here is that there are many things out there that can cause tooth decay. And if you have any question if something you are doing may be detrimental to your oral health it is best to ask your dentist.