How Do You Get Cavities?

Hello, I’m Dr. Grey Kantor. I work here with my father at Kantor and Kantor, DDS, Dentistry for Healthy Living in San Rafael, CA. Today I want to talk about a very important topic with how you get cavities, and that is where you get cavities. If you know where you get cavities, you can keep those places clean, and make sure that you never get cavities. So there’s three main places that you get cavities: These are at the base of your tooth by the gums, in between the teeth where you should be flossing, and on the biting surface of the teeth, otherwise known as your pit and fissure area, where you have deep pits and fissures that can collect plaque. The reason these areas are important is because these are the areas that the plaque can collect, and they’re tight, small areas that are hard to clean.

Take this, for example, are two teeth next to each other. If we watch and we don’t clean this area right here, we’ll notice that it’ll start to decay, and that’s because we didn’t clean or floss our teeth right there and that will lead to a root canal. The same goes for the biting surface of our teeth. If we watch right here, right at the biting surface of the teeth, we’ll notice that you can get decay there too and that will again lead to needing a root canal. The last place is down at the bottom of the tooth right by the gums. If you look if our gums don’t get cleaned and it recedes back we’ll start to get decay down at the base of the tooth. These three areas if kept clean will defend against cavities forever.

So how do we clean those areas? One, when you have a toothbrush, brush down here. Always brush by the gums, you’re not only massaging the gums but you’re keeping that area of a plaque track clean. Two, floss your teeth. If you floss right in between your teeth, you won’t get a cavity there. And finally of course, the biting surface pit and fissure decay. That on the other hand is hard to clean. You imagine you have these deep pits and fissures, how are you supposed to clean those? Your toothbrush isn’t going to fit right down into those little spots. Go see your dentist. Your dentist will look into those pits and fissures and determine whether or not they have a propensity to decay. If they do, the dentist may suggest either a small filling or a sealant in order to defend against decay in those areas.

Overall, though, if you can defend those three spots, by the gums, in between the teeth, and on the biting surface, you’ll never have to worry about a cavity again. Again, my name’s Dr. Grey Kantor, and we hope to see you here soon at Kantor and Kantor, DDS, Dentistry for Healthy Living.