So this is Dr. Antolak from thegentledentist.com in Shelby Township, Michigan. Our phone number is 586-247-3500. And, one thing I like to do, educating wise, is how to brush teeth. And one thing that we want to do. And the reason why I emphasize tooth brushing, and you’ll see from this picture that is right over me about something that’s taking place with the patient I’ve recently seen who was too aggressive with their toothbrush. When we brush teeth, we want to make sure that we angle the toothbrush up to the teeth and do small circles. And, we want to start off in one direction and continue around right towards the gum line. And then come around like this here. Then do the bottom ones, like this. And then do the inside the same way. And, what happens is, if you use too hard of a brush and you’re too aggressive and try to scrub like this, and scrub the other way, you can actually wear away the tooth structure, the gum tissue, and the bone.
And, let me show you, in this case. So, this patient came in. This is the left side of his mouth. And we can see. Normally his, the enamel of the teeth are about this level here, at the bottom of this toothbrush here. And so what you did is, over a period of time. By brushing too hard, he’s actually brushed the entire root of the tooth away and the bone that was covering all this area, and the gum tissue. Normally, like I say, when he smiled at one point in time before he did this damage, it would’ve been like this, okay. But now, it’s way up to here. This exposes potentially the nerve actually can get exposed from that and you wear away the supporting structures of the teeth. …so, there’s less there to handle that. So, it’s real important, even sometimes with people like this who may clench their teeth that have a factor, clenching does. If they use abrasive toothpaste even that will really increase the level and the speed that the gums and the teeth and everything wear away. It can become too abrasive. You can see this is unhealthy. See he didn’t, in this case he didn’t, wasn’t able to reach all the way back here to this tooth. So this tooth is fine. So this one right here is how it naturally should be, but these teeth are obviously really too bad.
If we look at another photo here of him you can see that one is of the same side, but you can see the level of destruction has taken place. Let’s see, this one. Right here shows this other side of his mouth where he does have the same, similar thing. But you’ll notice here, on the top, this one’s fine. And his lower teeth, they’re fine. See, lower teeth this is how they should be. Not sticking way up like that. So believe it or not over a period of years and if you are too aggressive with brushing your teeth you can literally brush them away. What I recommend for our patients that have hard toothbrushes like that I tell them to use if for their grout in there, in their showers to get all the mold and bacteria off because that’s about all they are good for. Please just use a softer or extra soft toothbrush. If you use a manual brush if you don’t use a Sonic Care and the rest you and do for yourself. Thank you and if there are any questions you can give our office a call at 587-247-3500.
Again, this is Dr. Antolak from thegentledentist.com in Shelby Township, Michigan. And as a follow up to a previous video I did. I just realized that it’s a good idea to make note that what happens with teeth that have so much wear on them. As we age, actually our nerves, our pulps that are in the teeth actually shrink down and get smaller and smaller. Sometimes trauma. Now for example in this patients’ case where they lost a lot of the tooth structure itself, where it’s literally dished out, grooved out, maybe 1/3 of this tooth is missing. What happens is, over time, if it takes place over time, the nerve response, this is how God made us, is so that the nerves will actually shrink down and get smaller and smaller and smaller. If a situation like that took place on a very rapid basis, this would all bend right into the nerves of this teeth. But the fact, and you can even see some of the different colors, see how it looks dark right there? That’s actually where the nerve must have been, but then the body hasn’t been able to respond to this trauma, and shrink the nerve down. And this is how our bites are made in amazing ways to compensate for traumatic events. So if you’re interested in, in knowing more about this or, you know, the fact that if you need to have something done to prevent destruction that takes place in your mouth, please give us a call at 586-247-3500.
Shelby Township Dentist Discusses the Importance of Brushing Your Teeth
