The Sawtooths

On a distantly related dental matter, and I mean DISTANTLY related, Jace and I took a trip up into the SAWTOOTHS last month and had a wonderful time. We camped and fished and hiked up into some beautiful country. One of the highlights involved a climb into “Bridal Veil Falls”.

It was quite a grunt and Jace handled it like a Champ - great attitude all the way in and out! I loved being with my boy – especially in that setting. We caught some of the trip on film.

If you click on the Title above, it will direct you to some beautiful photos of the Sawtooths. I think it's worth a visit. Enjoy and take care!

Cavity-Forming-Acid comes from where?!

When we talk about ACID being the culprit in cavity formation, it’s good to talk about where that acid comes from. It generally takes three things, all present and working together, to get a cavity. Those 3 items are: bugs, sugar, & time.

As mentioned in a previous post, bugs lack the mouths and incisors needed to eat into our teeth and they lack the hands needed to hold the pitchforks & shovels needed for digging holes in our teeth. They do, however, still like to eat and wreak havoc where they can. What do they like to eat? The same thing you and I like - sugar. They absorb sugar through their little body walls and eat it up just as quick as they can. Sugar comes in all forms (lactose, maltose, galactose, etc) and these bugs particularly like the sugar we call sucrose and it’s sucrose that’s in all our sugary snacks. It is small enough for them to handle and it’s loaded with energy. So, what does this have to do with acid? The kids we talk to get a kick out of our answer.

To answer the question about the relationship between bugs, sugar and acid, we ask another question, “What does a bug do with the sugar once it’s used up?” The answer is, they do the same thing we do with our Big Mac once we’re done with it - except they do it on our tooth. When they get rid of their waste, it comes out in a very acidic form and if that acid is allowed to sit on our teeth long enough, it dissolves our teeth and forms cavities. And that’s it…that’s how cavities form. The bugs in our mouths eat the sugar we feed them. They return it to us in the form of an acid and that acid dissolves the tooth if given enough time. Where it does that, a little cave forms in the tooth and we call that a cavity. Next time, I’ll talk about how easy it is to prevent cavities.