How to treat children's tooth decay

It is very common for children to have cavities. Children usually like to eat sweets and drink carbonated beverages. If they do not pay attention to oral hygiene and do not rinse their mouths and brush their teeth in time, this may cause cavities in children. Children must be treated in time after they have cavities. Do not delay treatment because you think that the child will need to change teeth in the future. This is not good for the child. Let's take a look at this aspect.

What to do if children have tooth decay

1. Mild tooth decay

Tooth decay is best treated in its early stages, but there is no pain in the early stages. When it is discovered in time, the cavities can be filled by choosing appropriate materials. First, the damaged tissue around the cavity is removed, and then filled with appropriate materials to restore the integrity of the tooth surface and prevent the continuation of tooth decay.

2. Moderate tooth decay

In the middle stage of tooth decay, you will feel tooth pain when eating and will be very sensitive to sour and sweet foods. At this time, root canal treatment should be used. Root canal treatment is to remove necrotic materials in the root canal, perform appropriate disinfection, fill the root canal, and then seal the caries cavity, which can effectively treat mid-stage tooth decay.

3. Severe tooth decay

The cavities in the later stages of tooth decay will be particularly obvious, causing severe pain and unbearable suffering. The dental pulp becomes infected and necrotic. The bacteria may even spread from the pulp through the tooth root to the nearby periodontal tissues, causing inflammation or abscesses. In this case, the only treatment for the decayed tooth is extraction.

2. How to prevent tooth decay

1. Brush your teeth

Brushing your teeth is the simplest and most effective way to maintain oral health. To achieve this, parents should first urge their children to brush their teeth and maintain oral hygiene regularly. If you cannot brush your teeth immediately after a meal or snack, you must rinse your mouth to remove most of the food debris, because these food debris are the cause of many oral diseases. In addition, children should be encouraged to eat more fiber-rich foods, as fiber can help clean teeth. You can also go to the hospital for consultation or do some health care treatments for your teeth, such as: pit and fissure sealing, fluoride rinses, etc., which are all effective ways to prevent tooth decay.

3. Take the initiative to check your child’s teeth at home

Parents should take the initiative to check their children's teeth regularly (they can also check each other's teeth). If you notice that your teeth have become darker or have abnormal phenomena such as cavities or food impaction, you must go to the hospital immediately for further examination and treatment. Because dental disease is not like a cold or fever, it usually does not heal on its own, and there is no oral medication that can cure it. At most, it can only relieve symptoms.

3. Active treatment

Actively cooperate with the doctor's treatment, because once the tooth has neurological symptoms, the treatment process will be more complicated. Usually a course of treatment requires three to four follow-up visits, and each visit has a certain time limit. If parents do not cooperate seriously, minor illnesses will often turn into major ones and eventually have to be removed.

4. Go to the hospital for regular check-ups

No matter how good the prevention is, there will always be a small amount of cavities, so it is best to go to the pediatric dentistry of a dental specialist hospital for a check-up every six months, which only takes a few minutes. The problems discovered by doctors are basically early-stage problems, and most of them can be cured in one go, saving a lot of time and energy.