Dr. Paul Bell, DDS

I would floss a minimum of 3 times per week. That’s enough to disrupt the plaque before it causes decay or gum disease. It may not keep you from forming tartar behind your lower front teeth but it will keep it from forming everywhere else in most people.

Wisdom teeth extraction sites can get infected but what you are feeling is most likely a dry socket. This occurs when the blood clotting process is disturbed inside the extraction site. You should return to whoever extracted the teeth for treatment. It usually entails plugging the extraction sites with a medicine doused gauze several times. Hope this helps and hope you feel better soon!

It is incredibly rare that a small cut inside the mouth get infected. I know that sounds funny because our mouth is teeming with bacteria but saliva has a lot of healing components including heparin that help the mouth heal properly. Think about dogs who lick their wounds. A scab inside the mouth looks yellow because of the wet environment, so a yellow covering is fine. However, if the edges get really red and puffy or you start to see pus leaking out of the cut which would be a yellow or green liquid, then she likely has an infection and should be seen. Good luck!

The pain you are describing can only come from a few different problems. First, the filling you just had done may not have been adjusted properly leaving it high in your bite. If it is sticking up higher than the adjacent teeth, even by the width of a strand of hair, it will get pounded and hurt when you bite and even to the cold. Another possibility is that the cavity was so close to the nerve that the nerve has started to die. This will require a root canal to save the tooth and likely a crown. You should contact the dentist that did your filling and ask them to evaluate it. Best of luck!

Bad breath almost always comes from bacteria in the mouth. There are some cases where it comes from the stomach, but they are rare. There are lots of places the bacteria can hide and spread in your mouth. The top of the tongue should be brushed well when you brush your teeth. If you have cavities or gum disease that is untreated, that will cause bad breath. If you have a lot of old dental work, especially crowns, that will contribute. If there are places where food is getting stuck when you eat, that might be a factor. One way you can find where it’s coming from is to floss in between each tooth and then smell the floss after each tooth. That can help you zero in on the problem. Lack of flossing causes bad breath. Also, mouthwashes with alcohol in them can make it worse because they dry out your mouth and give the bacteria a breeding ground. Breath RX is one of the best mouthwashes for bad breath. Good luck!

Our teeth naturally wear down as we use them throughout our lives. Chewing on anything too much will speed that wear, however the risk of chewing a lot of gum is fairly low. If it keeps you from smoking, I wouldn’t stop. Smoking will cause you to lose teeth from bone loss. Maybe consider slowing down a little and eventually trying to get to a max of 3 or 4 hours a day of chewing gum or less. Good luck!

Great question. A pop means the disc that sits in between the two bones and
acts as a shock absorber is stuck in front of the joint. When you open it
pops back into place. The grinding you hear is caused by the bones grinding