What Causes a Cavity?

Today, people are busier than ever. This can make it harder for you to maintain good oral health. Unfortunately, a good oral routine takes the backseat when other things that seem more important come up; this can lead to painful cavities, loss of teeth, and gum disease. what is worse, is that a poor oral health routine can actually lead to poor overall health.

What, though, actually causes a cavity? It may surprise you that many people do not fully understand the causes of a cavity.

How a Cavity is Formed

Bacteria is essentially always present in your mouth, both good and bad. This doesn’t necessarily constitute a bad thing unless you neglect to clean your mouth regularly and effectively. When you eat soft sugary foods, they have a tendency to stick to the surface of your teeth and the hard-to-reach crevices within them.

When the bad bacteria in your mouth latch on to the leftover food particles, they start to form a colony. As this colony of bacteria seeds and grows on to the food that you have neglected to clean from your mouth, the bacteria excrete an acid that corrodes into the enamel of your tooth.

As time goes on, the colony of bacteria becomes harder and harder to remove, slowly forming dental plaque. Eventually, the plaque becomes very hard and the bacteria will bore a hole into your tooth. This hole filled with bacteria is called a cavity.

How to Fix a Cavity?

Once a cavity has formed, you must see the dentist in order to get it corrected. You cannot do so on your own at home. If you suspect that you have a cavity, please give us a call and schedule an appointment today. If you catch the cavity early, the correction will be very easy. However, if you wait too long, the situation will only get worse and the correction will become more difficult.