How to Start Reducing the Number of
Cavity-Causing Bctaeria in Your Mouth

An important step in Cavity Prevention is the  elimination of all cavities in mouth-Cavity causing bacteria will spread to your other teeth and to other people you are close to.

Tooth decay is spread between people by specific kinds of bacteria that are passed between members of families and others who are close.

But tooth decay also spreads from tooth to tooth in an individual’s mouth.  A tooth cavity harbors large numbers of the kind of bacteria that cause the attack on tooth enamel that starts tooth decay

And when there are multiple cavities in a person’s mouth, the process of spread of the decay from tooth to tooth is accelerated.

You can think of tooth decay as a fire that is spreading thorugh the mouth.

The smartest thing to do is to put out the fire (Stop the spreading of tooth decay)
before the carpenters start to rebuild the fire damage (before the dentist starts to fix the teeth)

So often, at the first appotintment, we will clean out the cavity holes and put in temporary sedative fillings.

 After the holes are filled with the sedative fillings two things are achieved:

1. any toothaches are reduced by the sedative filling and
2. the number of cavity causing bacateria in the mouth is immediately reduced-which stops the spread of cavities to the other teeth.

Once the infection is halted it won’t be spread to your family and loved ones.

But it works both ways—your loved ones can re-infect your mouth if THEY have cavites.  So going to the dentist should be a shared event to most effective.