by peterpan

Created on: April 07, 2008

Tooth decay or caries in teeth is due to poor oral hygiene coupled by the attack of bacteria and generation of the acidic environment that develops through time inside the mouth. Tooth decay is a common problem. It is, however, very easy to be treated if only we know the essence of having it restored the earliest time possible.

Let's make use of apples as an example. Imagine two baskets of freshly picked apples. However, in one of the baskets, there is one rotten apple. What do you think will be the consequence of having this decayed apple to the other pristine ones? For sure the decay will be transferred to all the other apples in that basket and they will all get rotten faster than the other basket where all the apples are fresh.

Why do we need to have those decayed/carious areas in our teeth filled?

As soon as the dentist diagnoses us of having carious teeth, we have to comply and be prompt to ask for it to be filled. The reason behind is quite simple. We need to stop the progression of the decay of the tooth involved to prevent further destruction. The decayed area in unfilled decayed teeth will further continue to harm the healthy tooth substrates. We may not notice this until our tooth fractures and then show us the real destruction inside. The carious process is very deceiving. What we may just see on the outside is a small decay but inside, it could already be a large cavitaton since the disease process conforms to the orientation of the enamel rods in the teeth.

If left unfilled, big carious lesion would cause pulp exposure that could result to irreversible pulpitis or the worse is pulpal necrosis. This would just leave us with two options either to extract the tooth or to treat it with root canal treatment depending on its restorability.

Aside from the fear of pulpal involvement, it is also a possibility that the carious lesion could affect the adjacent tooth especially if the decay is on the proximal area (in between teeth). This scenario is very common since these areas are hard to clean not unless you religiously perform flossing. How does this happen? Even if the tooth adjacent to the carious one is healthy, the constant bacterial exposure as well as acid attack from bacterial metabolites of the healthy tooth, it would cause the decay on the area of exposure.

Aside from these, decayed teeth extending up to the gingival area is a predisposing factor to periodontal disease. We may not notice it but the fact is, these areas, especially the ones extending

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