What Does Fluoride Prevent?

Video Transcript

"Fluoride has become a very important medicine used in dentistry today to treat things such as tooth decay, as well as bad breath and, often times, tooth sensitivity. Fluoride has been around for a very long time and the research continues to grow as far as showing the additional benefits of fluoride. So, which goes back to the original question, what is fluoride? Fluoride is essentially a medicine that's used in day-to-day dentistry that helps minimize tooth decay or cavities. We find that, by having fluoride in your diet, whether it be in the water or using regular toothpaste or even in the foods that we eat, the more fluoride that gets in our diet, can actually help strengthen our teeth. When we talk about strengthening, what we're referring to is the ability of your teeth to fight off tooth decay. Tooth decay is essentially, the cavity is a bacteria that kind of dissolves the tooth. And when you have more fluoride in your diet, or in your toothpaste, the fluoride actually can kill the bacteria, as well as make the teeth more resistant to the tooth decay. We can find that in different products, such as our fluoride treatments that we provide in the office, as well as the tooth fluoride products that we prescribe to take home and certainly in most toothpastes that find in nowadays. All of these have certain trace elements of fluoride, and that is usually adequate to help maintain, prevention and a defense against cavities. The other issue that fluoride addresses is tooth sensitivity. Which is a fairly newer topic in the tooth decay. We've known for a long time that fluoride can help fight tooth decay, but what we're finding is fluoride can also help eliminate some normal hot and cold sensitivity that one might experience on the teeth. What we find is, with prescription fluorides, such as this one, that a daily routine can actually incorporate enough fluoride on the surfaces on the teeth that most people will report a decrease is tooth sensitivity to hot, cold, and sweets. And it's an everyday practice of the dentist, and it should be an everyday practice of the patient as well, as fluoride is a very inexpensive way of helping prevent tooth decay, as well as treating tooth sensitivity."