Treatment of caries at home: is it really possible?

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Sometimes it is really possible to cure a tooth affected by caries at home, but there are a number of important nuances in this difficult task ...

It is possible to treat caries at home only at certain stages of the disease, when it is possible to restore the enamel and do without removing the tissues damaged by caries. Such an independent struggle with the disease requires serious methodicalness and regularity, and its success largely depends on what stage of development caries was found and whether the means to fight it were chosen correctly.

However, brave souls are often found trying to remove caries-damaged tissues from a tooth at home, for example, with sandpaper or simply scraping them off with a needle. Some even try to use bleach or hydrogen peroxide, seriously expecting that the darkened areas after such procedures will again become white and healthy. Below, we will consider how such treatment approaches are effective and safe for health.

Perhaps, most of the time people try to use sandpaper, needles or whiten carious areas with something like self-healing at home, for example, with hydrogen peroxide.

It is important to understand that at home it is possible to treat caries only at the first, very early stage, when a tooth lesion looks like a bright spot. At this stage, with the help of special measures and means it is possible to stop the further destruction of enamel and, moreover, to ensure the introduction of mineral components into it to restore the original healthy state.

Important!

It is difficult enough to distinguish at home the disease in the stain stage from surface caries, which can no longer be treated without a dentist. At the same time, methods and means that may be effective at the very beginning of the development of the disease, a little later will not give the desired result (at this stage, calcium, fluorine and phosphorus are washed out of the enamel, but its protein matrix is also partially destroyed). Therefore, a consultation with a dentist should go at least in order for the doctor to determine exactly whether caries can be cured without drilling a tooth. By the way, a good dentist will never remove damaged tissue that can still be repaired with remineralization methods. And the doctor will be able to find out the cause of the appeared destruction and find effective means for the treatment of caries at home.

The photo shows an example of caries in the stage of the so-called white spot (sometimes also referred to as chalk)

Moreover, during the time spent avoiding a visit to the doctor and an attempt to self-cure caries, the disease can be complicated by pulpitis or, even worse, periodontitis. In such a situation, a person, instead of putting a neat seal a few months ago, will have to endure the removal of pulp (nerve) or the treatment of gums.

Most of the problems people usually create for themselves. Many dentists can cite several cases from their practice, when patients tried to sanitize caries, scrape it off with a hard object or bleach with some household chemicals. As a result, they earned, at best, additional damage to the tooth enamel, and at worst, severe complications of caries or burns to the mouth. And if each of these home-grown doctors knew in advance when caries could not be precisely treated at home, there would be much less such sad cases.

In most cases, when trying to scrape off the dark areas on the tooth, the carious cavity only deepens, and the risk of complications will increase ...

Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to find out whether it is possible to cure caries in general at home just in your case ...

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“When I served, we had a lieutenant in the unit who did not recognize the dentists and removed the stones from the teeth with a simple gypsy needle. He did it very well, but a couple of times it was such that caries appeared.Even in this case, he picked up a hole with the same needle and then washed it with peroxide. True, swearing strongly, because it is very painful. The first time, he was so inflamed and taken to the hospital - a couple of days after such an improvised operation, his face was spread twice. And the second time, he couldn’t even clean everything up, because, apparently, the beginning of the tooth was very strong. ”

Sergey, Ulyanovsk

What does caries look like that can be cured at home

At each stage of development, caries manifests itself with a certain set of external manifestations and symptoms. It is possible to treat a disease at home if:

The tooth does not hurt, even when cold water is in contact with it and air flow is inhaled.
Caries itself looks just like a white smooth spot.
There are no black dots and dashes (the latter are typical for fissure caries).

But at the stage of white spots to restore the properties of tooth enamel is quite possible not only at the dentist, but also at home.

If there is a hole (cavity) in the enamel, then it is impossible to cure the tooth without filling. In many cases, such carious lesions, which can only be cured by a dentist, show themselves as distinct brown or black spots.

It is also useful to read: Ways to prevent caries in children

This is especially true for fissures, where such spots can sometimes be very small and do not bother with anything, which is why many do not perceive them as a serious problem. Meanwhile, the affected area under such a spot may already penetrate deep into the dentin.

Even insignificant dark points on the chewing surface of the tooth (in the fissure area) are sometimes a kind of inlet to deep carious cavities penetrating to the dentin layer ...

Due to the small size of the darkened areas in the fissure area, many believe that such stains can be simply bleached or sanded at home, and the caries seems to be cured. In fact, such a stain is just a sign that it is no longer possible to cure caries without a filling.

Attempting to remove dark, caries-damaged tooth tissues by mechanical methods is useless. It may seem that if you clear the darkened areas with a needle or grind them off with any abrasive material (sandpaper, file), then the cleared space will “overgrow” itself. This is a gross mistake: the carious cavity will never recover on its own, and with a high probability of tooth tissue in this area will continue to collapse after cleaning.

Deep carious cavities never recover on their own, and attempts to clean them with their own hands will only lead to the aggravation of the problem.

It is interesting

A white spot on the tooth is formed during the demineralization of the subsurface thin layer of enamel.Its main components, hydroxyapatites and fluorapatites, are dissolved by acids from the oral cavity and washed away. If you reduce the amount of such acids and regularly apply to the teeth the substances from which secondary apatites are formed, in particular fluorine and calcium compounds, this layer of enamel can be restored.

If you do not start treatment in time, then the enamel protein matrix, which ensures order in the arrangement of the fluorine and hydroxyapatite particles, gradually begins to break down. At this stage, the strength of enamel is reduced, it becomes rough. In places where the protein matrix is damaged, the tissue will no longer recover - the mineral components will no longer be arranged in an orderly manner between the collagen fibers.

What can you do yourself?

Treatment of caries at home should be aimed at restoring the enamel that began to break down and at improving the cariogenic situation in the oral cavity.

For this, in most cases it will be useful:

Develop and strictly observe the regime of brushing your teeth, pick up a suitable toothpaste. This will stop or slow down the damage of the tooth by the bacteria in the mouth and the acids they produce.
Enamel restoration by remineralization - teeth are processed with special mineralizing gels. These include, for example, R.O.C.S Medical Minerals, GC Tooth Mousse, Fluocal Gel, and others. When they are used, the damaged area is saturated with mineral components necessary for the restoration of enamel.
To use rinsing agents that destroy cariogenic bacteria (fluorine compounds may also be part of such rinses, contributing to the mineralization of caries damaged tissues).
Follow a diet with a limited amount of sweet and flour.
Develop a proper diet with no snacking between meals and mandatory mouthwash after every meal.
In the diet to increase the amount of foods with a high calcium content, and in some cases (as indicated by a doctor), salt and water with additional amounts of fluoride are used.

But the treatment of caries folk remedies without the control of the dentist in most cases will be more harmful than useful ...

When treatment of caries at home only hurts

The following folk remedies are strictly not recommended for the treatment of caries:

Powdered milk - it increases the growth rate of bacteria in the mouth several times.
To put honey on your teeth - for the same reason.
Rinse your mouth with vodka with horseradish - despite certain antiseptic properties of this tincture, its beneficial effect will be minimal, but it may well cause harm to the oral mucosa.
Hydrogen peroxide, which many try to bleach damaged areas. Even if some bleaching happens and you do not get burned by the mucous membrane, the healing effect of such a procedure will be minimal - the bleached tooth tissues will continue to collapse.

In an attempt to cure caries with hydrogen peroxide, only uneven tooth spotting can be achieved, and a burn of the oral mucosa is also likely.

It's also pointless trying to shut up. carious holes propolis - it does not possess any regenerating properties, and the carbohydrates contained in it are an excellent nutrient medium for bacteria.

And certainly you should not try to treat caries with propolis, blocking the holes in the tooth with its pieces - the carbohydrates contained in this substance will only lead to the activation of cariogenic microorganisms.

What can lead self-medication: errors that can not be repeated

The most unfortunate consequences usually occur in cases where the owner of the diseased tooth tries to get rid of caries without a dentist at those stages of the development of the disease, at which the doctor would have to make a lot of effort.

From the experience of the dentist

Unfortunately, there are cases of treatment to the dentist after self-treatment of the tooth.Sometimes people with caries lay in the "hollow" cotton wool, moistened with anesthetic tooth drops or anesthetics that are taken freely in a pharmacy. This allows you to safely eat, drink cold and hot water without signs of caries (pain from irritants), but the result of such self-treatment is most often at best - deep caries, and at worst - its complications: pulpitis, periodontitis or serious purulent forms of diseases surrounding the root tooth tissues (periostitis, osteomyelitis, abscess, etc.).

Some patients even use caries plots (especially older women), which for some unknown reason translate the acute form of the disease into chronic. The result of this bioenergy treatment that has not been studied to date is late admission to the dentist (5–20 years after the onset of tooth formation) already with multiple roots in the oral cavity and beginning problems in the bone tissue, up to its deformation due to developed chronic osteomyelitis against the background of such a number of infected roots with granulomas and cysts. So it is better not to treat caries with conspiracies and prayers: in spite of the possible “lull” the outcome is very pitiable.

Strangely enough, but plots sometimes seem to reduce toothache, but the caries itself does not go anywhere, and in the future problems will only increase.

The following cases are known:

Remove caries or tartar at home with sandpaper or a file. In such situations, the patient sometimes even experiences severe pain, but continues to “heal” (more precisely, destroy) the enamel, thus easing the damage to the dentin located below it that is more vulnerable to caries.
Attempts to clean out carious cavities with a simple needle. This approach never gives a long-term result - even if it turns out to clear the darkened area, the destruction (and pigmentation) in this place will continue.
Use bleach and bleach to remove dark spots on teeth. Such a home-based “treatment” is very dangerous because of the possibility of a serious burn of the oral mucosa, and it simply makes no sense, since it will not be possible to effectively whiten a tooth with such means.
Attempts to remove a carious tooth lesion with concentrated acetic acid. It is also a very dangerous procedure, which will simply finish off the partially destroyed enamel.

It is also useful to read: Average caries

Concentrated acetic acid really well dissolves caries damaged tissues; however, it will also destroy healthy enamel and dentin as well, and can easily lead to burns to the mouth.

All of these methods are dangerous and ineffective. Practice shows that in all cases after such self-treatment a person is still in the dentist’s chair,but already with much bigger problems than those he wanted to solve at home.

Feedback

“... I recommend you to quit all these attempts to get rid of caries yourself. Yes, maybe, somewhere in the gods forgotten villages, still vodka is treated with caries, but you are a civilized person and have the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of civilization. Jack London also deleted his teeth in stories with a hammer and nail, so today you will also tear yourself like that? In my youth, my mother-in-law poured her tooth in order to whiten caries when bleached. Then she lay in the hospital with a burn of the mouth and larynx, her whole life was hoarse from this ... "

From the correspondence on the forum

It is very important to be honest with yourself and be aware that you are trying to find a way to treat caries at home just because you are afraid to go to the doctor or do not want to spend money.

Most likely, you have already missed the stage at which caries could be cured without a doctor. And now the tooth either hurts or “pleases” you with an unphotogenic black spot. If you try to treat it at home, then either you will be very painful, or you risk earning pulpitis or periodontitis, and the procedures at the dentist will be much longer and more expensive for you.

If the teeth are clearly in poor condition, do not delay the visit to the dentist, as at home you will not be able to get rid of the problem.

The photo shows an example of deep caries, when home treatment will be completely ineffective.

At the same time, today, dental caries is treated absolutely without pain and for all people raising money for practically every person, and to shy away from such treatment means condemning yourself to a permanent deterioration with the tooth. Therefore, once again look at your caries and sign up as soon as possible to the doctor.

Be healthy!