While eating an ice cream, drinking a cold/hot beverages or even biting into a cold piece of food you might notice a slight sting in your teeth, this is sensitivity . If you occasionally or constantly suffer from sensitive teeth, you’re not alone. Everyday-health researchers state that 1 in 8 adults have some level of sensitivity in their teeth.
This sensation could go from a tingle to intense pain in an instant, so it’s important to understand why your teeth may be sensitive and whatis the cause for this reaction.

Here are 7 most common reasons which can cause teeth sensitivity.

Enamel is diminishing:
Enamel is the hard substance on the outer surface of our teeth that protects the teeth from getting cracked, infected or damaged. If your enamel starts to decay because of caries, it can cause irritation on your teeth. Enamel can diminish if u practice hard tooth brushing, having acidic foods and drinks, or due to oral health ignorance.

There’s a crack in the tooth.
If there’s a particular tooth that is giving you a sensitive feeling when drinking or biting, it could be due to a crack that has occurred. Although you might notice a broken tooth or a filling that has fallen off. A crack can occur without you knowing, until start causing pain. A crack can allows food and drink inside the tooth irritating the nerve of the tooth.

There can be a cavity:
One of the very important reason could be the tooth could have a cavity. No one ever wants to get a cavity but these cavities can be a quickly fixed in most situations if taken care of early. With a right tooth problem diagnosis, we can repair the tooth by removing the cavities and doing the right dental restorations/ filling retaining the original shape of the tooth.

Poor oral hygiene:
As mentioned ignoring oral care can cause teeth to become more sensitive and painful when chewing or drinking. It’s important to brush your teeth and floss regularly to clear your teeth of plaque and food debris. These substances have active microorganisms which make the oral environment acidic causing wear down your enamel or an infection.

Gum recession:
As age advances some individuals do experience recession of the gums leading root exposure and teeth sensitivity. The gum recession can also be because of hard tooth brushing, picking teeth with tooth picks, betel nut/pan chewing, smoking or along with medical conditions conditions like diabetes and blood pressure.

Grinding of teeth:
Conscious or subconsciously some people have the habit of clenching their teeth too hard on each other. Bruxism or night grinding of teeth is also one of the common cause for teeth sensitivity. These hard grinding and clenching habits cause flattening of teeth and accelerated wearing-off of enamel leading to all teeth sensitivity.

Post dental procedure sensitivity:
This is one of the common form of teeth sensitivity, it generally wears of in 7-10 days. This is normally experienced after complete dental cleaning, filling, crown and bridge work. Sensitivity might also be experience after tooth extraction in the teeth ahead and behind of extracted teeth.

We at Vista Dental care can assess your teeth sensitivity and provide options to help repair a damaged teeth and cope with teeth sensitivity issues for once and all.