A Healthy Tooth

Early Decay in Enamel

Eating and drinking too many sugary foods and drinks can cause decay in the grooves and fissures on the biting surfaces of the teeth.

Early decay can be stopped from progressing by:

Decay Spreads into Dentine

Once decay has spread right though the enamel it spreads more widely in the softer dentine.

The spread of decay can no longer be prevented.

- An amalgam filling

or

- A tooth coloured composite filling

Decay Spreads Deeper

If decay is not treated it will continue to spread through the dentine until it reaches the nerve.

As the cavity gets deeper, toothache is likely

The decay also spreads sideways and the biting surface and sides of the tooth may cave in.

Treatment is to remove the decay, protect the underlying nerve with a lining and fill the cavity with a metal amalgam filling.

Badly broken down teeth may need to be crowned.

Decay reaches the nerve

Decay will eventually spread right into the nerve

This usually causes severe toothache as the nerve dies.

Once the nerve has died the pain may subside until infection spreads through the roots into the surrounding area, causing yet more pain and possible swelling of the gum and loosening of the tooth.

Treatment is to "root fill" the tooth, cleaning out any dying or dead nerve tissue and filling the empty space inside the root canal.

Extracting the tooth is an alternative.