My teeth are wearing away, and roots are exposed. What do I do?

Question

Hello doctor,

My two front bottom teeth are wearing away from the inside (from below upwards). They will soon have the roots exposed, and then I will surely lose them. Is there anything I can do to slow down the process?

Brushing now seems to accelerate it, with chunks coming out! I have not been to the dentist in the last 20 years because I am afraid the first thing that he would do is scrape the area, and the teeth might fall out.

Please help.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

The scraping done to the inside area of the lower front teeth is necessary to remove calculus deposited at the site. This procedure is called the dental scaling. We definitely have to remove those calculus deposits for a longer life of the teeth. Use a warm saline gargle or Betadine gargle to reduce the loss of gingiva (gums) in that area.

You should do cleaning (scaling) of the area and remove those deposits. Even though it would feel like the teeth have become loose, this procedure actually helps in saving the teeth from further damage.

Try doing root canal treatment (RCT) of the lower front teeth, as it would help in ankylosis of the teeth to the bone and decrease the mobility.

Kindly send a picture of the area so that I can better diagnose the problem.

There is also a method to increase the gingival area (gum support) of the teeth by doing periodontal surgery called flap surgery to place some bone-forming fragments inside the gingiva and pull the gingiva upwards to increase the spread of bone formation around the root of the teeth.

I hope this helps.

Please feel free to reach out in case of further queries.

Thank you.