4 min read
What a dentist is actually looking for at a check-up
The part of a check-up that could save your life takes about fifteen seconds and involves no teeth at all. Most patients never notice it happening.
Dental health, explained
Most dental advice is delivered as a list of rules with the reasoning left out. These are the explanations underneath: what is actually happening inside a tooth, what the research supports, and what it means for the decision in front of you.
Prevention
5 articles
4 min read
Brushing your teeth: what the evidence actually supports
There is one free change that measurably reduces decay and almost nobody makes it: stop rinsing your mouth out after brushing. Here is why, and what else survives contact with the evidence.
4 min read
Bleeding gums are not normal: what gum disease actually does
Healthy gums do not bleed when brushed, any more than healthy skin bleeds when washed. The reason it gets ignored is that the disease it signals is almost entirely painless until it is advanced.
4 min read
Why cold water hurts: tooth sensitivity, explained
A sharp jolt from cold water and a deep ache that wakes you at night are two different problems with two different answers. Telling them apart is the most useful thing in this article.
5 min read
How a cavity actually forms: the twenty minutes after you eat
Decay is not sugar dissolving your teeth. It is a pH cycle that swings the wrong way a few times too often. Once you can picture that cycle, most dental advice stops sounding arbitrary.
Children
1 article
Treatment
3 articles
4 min read
Wisdom teeth: when they need to come out, and when they do not
The most damaging thing a wisdom tooth usually does is destroy the healthy tooth in front of it, quietly, in a spot no toothbrush reaches. That, not the wisdom tooth itself, is often the real argument for removal.
4 min read
Replacing a missing tooth: implant, bridge or denture
The first decision is not which replacement. It is whether to replace at all, and the argument for doing so is about the bone underneath rather than the gap you can see.
5 min read
Root canal treatment: what actually happens, and how long it lasts
The pain people associate with a root canal is the pain of the infection that made it necessary. The treatment is what stops it. Here is what happens in the chair, and an honest look at the numbers.
