Tooth Sensitivity in Bethlehem, PA

Treatment for tooth sensitivity at Always About Smiles, our Bethlehem, PA dental office, starts by finding the cause — I examine the tooth and treat what's behind the sensitivity rather than covering the feeling over. Effective care for sensitive teeth and gums means going back to enjoying all the frozen desserts and ice-cold drinks you've been avoiding.

Tooth sensitivity is also known as dentin hypersensitivity. Dentin makes up the main part of the tooth and it houses the nerve in the tooth. Enamel covers the dentin and provides a hard surface for chewing. When your enamel is worn down, the exposed dentin reacts to anything you eat or drink as it comes into contact with the nerves in your teeth. So sensitivity isn't the problem itself — it's the tooth telling you something is exposed.

Several things expose dentin, and they call for different answers. Enamel wears thin from acidic food and drink or from grinding. The gums recede and display the root surface underneath, which has no enamel over it at all. A filling can leave a tooth cold-sensitive while it settles. And a crack that doesn't show on an x-ray will make a tooth wince on a particular bite. Which one it is changes the treatment entirely.

For an exposed surface, a tooth-colored filling covers the dentin so pressure and temperature no longer reach it. Grinding calls for a night guard. Where the gums are the cause, non-surgical gum treatment settles them, and a gum graft is a periodontist's work that I refer out. Where a crack is behind it, the tooth needs protecting properly. With nutritional counseling, we'll work with you on a food plan that can minimize tooth sensitivity in the future. Desensitizing solutions applied directly to the tooth in our office can also be very effective in calming an excited nerve.

Exposed dentin, whatever exposed it. Several factors may contribute to tooth sensitivity, including acidic drinks or food, cavities, a sugary diet, tooth grinding, damaged teeth, gum disease, receding gum tissue, enamel loss and tooth decay — and recent dental treatment can do it temporarily.

That depends entirely on what's causing it, which is why the examination comes first and gets quoted first. A desensitizing treatment is inexpensive; a filling over an exposed root is a filling; a night guard or gum treatment is priced as its own item. You'll have the figure for whatever is actually needed. Financing is available, and Patient Loyalty Program members take 15% off treatment.

Once the cause has been treated, most people notice a difference within days, and a few weeks is usual for the tooth to quiet down completely. A tooth that's cold-sensitive after a new filling settles on its own over a similar stretch. What shouldn't be waited out is sensitivity that keeps getting worse — that's worth a phone call.

Much of it needs no anesthetic — a desensitizing agent painted onto the tooth takes moments. Where a filling is needed, I buffer the anesthetic chair-side before the injection, which brings it closer to your body's own neutral pH and makes the numbness more rapid and profound, and OraVerse, a novocaine-reversing agent, is available afterward to return normal sensation. Sensitive teeth make people wary of the chair, so tell me and I'll go at your pace.

Where the cause has been treated properly, it lasts — a filling over exposed dentin, or a night guard for grinding, deals with it rather than masking it. Where the sensitivity comes from gums that are still receding or enamel still wearing, it comes back unless the cause is managed, which is why the recare interval and the food plan are part of the answer.

It can, and this is the one worth checking properly. A crack that doesn't appear on an x-ray still makes a tooth flinch on a particular bite or on cold. Fiber optic transillumination can detect cracks in your teeth that are not visible to the naked eye, so I can see a fracture line rather than guess at it — which changes the repair.