Acid Erosion
Acid Erosion is a condition on the rise. It used to be rare, but is now common, especially among boys age 10-20. It happens when acid destroys the enamel. Some of these kids have done 60 years of wear on their teeth in 5 years.
The first image above shows a teenager with acid erosion (the enamel of a 65-year old!), the second shows how a normal molar should look.
Tooth enamel is extremely hard, but can dissolve in acid. You can get acid erosion from:
Soft drinks, and also juices, sports drinks and iced tea taken too often
Sour Candies
Chewable Vitamins
Stomach acid due to reflux problems
Soft Drinks- Did you ever notice your teeth feeling slightly rough when you rub them together after having a coke? The enamel has been slightly etched - making it rough - by the phosphoric acid that is one of the ingredients. Carbonation itself adds acidity as well as fizz, because the carbon dioxide creates carbonic acid in solution. Soft drinks are never great for your teeth, but if you do have them, make it occasionally only, not daily.
A wide variety of snack drinks and food - including many natural juices - have surprisingly low pH (in other words, they’re acidic). Tooth enamel is mostly calcium, and acid will dissolve it the same way descaler solution dissolves the scale in the bottom of your kettle. And it takes surprisingly little acidity - anything with a pH below 5 can do it. Teenagers are the most frequent victims of acid damage because they drink a lot of pop and juices, and tend to sip and swish it in their mouths. The worst erosion comes when people swish or hold the soft drink in their mouth to dissolve the bubbles a bit. And here’s a statistic for you: North American women drink more Diet Coke than water!
Here’s someone who drank almost a case of pop a day, after 1 year’s damage!
Fruit juices at full strength are quite acidic, as are iced tea and sports drinks. A glass of orange juice has all the sugar and acid from 4-6 oranges, in a much more concentrated form. Kids who drink 3-4 glasses of juice a day get up to 36 spoons of sugar and a lot of acid from this. The answer here is moderation! Have juice with meals, and only water, milk or very dilute juice between. If you drink a lot, it’s got to be water or very dilute drinks.
Acid foods can destroy enamel very quickly. Sour candies are terrible causes of erosion. Watch out for these! There are dozens of different kinds of extremely sour candies on the market, and we are seeing massive damage to enamel due to them. These should only be eaten in moderate doses, not a pack at a time.
There are three critical factors that determine the amount of harm dietary acidity can do to your teeth:
Acidity: The lower-pH drinks, like pop and lemonade, are the worst offenders
Frequency: Anyone can have a Coke once in a while without harm - its what you drink habitually that matters
Exposure time: Sipping acidic drinks slowly (or, even worse, swishing it about in your mouth before swallowing) gives it more time to attack your tooth enamel To minimize the effect, drink it quickly and try to keep it off your teeth!
Vitamin C chewable tablets (also known as Ascorbic Acid) can hurt your teeth with prolonged exposure - this is the reason we suggest swallowing without sucking on the tablets. In our dental opinion it’s not beneficial for Vitamin C to be on the market in chewable form.
There is an excellent article on acid erosion at Dr. Steve Hendry’s website, and this page was co-written with Dr. Hendry’s assistance. Dr Kent Smith’s website also has a good list of drinks and acidity.
Acid reflux from the stomach: People with Bulemia tend to burn out the enamel inside their front teeth. Other people have acid reflux that seeps up from the stomach during the day. This condition needs to be treated by your medical doctor.
Please visit this page for info on how to care for teeth with acid damage: