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Cavities are one of the widest spread dental problems, as they happen with bacteria from your mouth breaking down sugar and turning that to acid when attacks over enamel forming some tiny holes in your tooth. Cavities that are caught early can be treated with a common filling. But, cavities can result in dire and painful consequences if not treated properly or early enough as suggested by a Holt dentist. Wondering what happens if you don’t get a cavity filled and why prompt treatment is essential to help keep your mouth as healthy as possible?
1. The Cavity Grows Bigger
A cavity will just get larger if it is left untreated. Bacteria continue to eat away the tooth from deeper layers and reach even further into the dentin (the softer tissue below your enamel). The cavity erodes the body of your tooth as it progresses and makes them more likely to break. As it grows, so does the cavity needing further treatment and finally a crown because not enough structure remains of the original tooth.
2. Heightened sensitivity and increased pain
The larger it gets and the deeper into your tooth layers, the more pain-sensitive you will experience. Initially, you might feel mild discomfort or a tingling sensation upon eating hot, cold, and sugary foods and drinks. However, with time this sensitivity devolves into a constant throbbing pain that causes undue stress in your life. Pain results if the decay encroaches on the nerve-rich central portion of your tooth, called pulp. Cavities that are left untreated often cause unbearable pain, leading to an emergency dental visit.
3 Dental Abscess and Tooth Infection
As this occurs, it leaves the inside of your tooth open to infection and bacteria that can slip past natural defenses within the pulp. This infection can cause inflammation, and severe pain and it can also be the beginning of a dental abscess. A dental abscess is a localized collection of pus associated with or adjacent to an inflamed tooth. It can cause significant pain and swelling, sometimes with a fever as well, including the bad taste in your mouth caused by pus that is draining from the abscess. Abscesses require timely care, and often this will involve root canal therapy or the loss of a tooth to keep an active infection from spreading.
4. Damage to Surrounding Teeth
An untreated decayed tooth can affect nearby teeth If these bacteria are not kept at bay, they can jump ship to neighboring teeth and increase the likelihood of fresh cavities forming. When multiple teeth are impacted, it can cause larger issues throughout the entire mouth and require more invasive (and expensive) treatments. But addressing a single cavity while still in its mild form may help stop bacteria from progressing and, by extension, keep the rest of your oral hygiene intact.
5. Bone Loss and Gum Disease
In more serious cases, an infection in a badly decayed tooth can spread past the root of your teeth to your jaw. When teeth are extracted, this leads to the loss of bone in the jaw which can compromise not just that impacted tooth but also nearby teeth as well. Furthermore, tooth decay (such as that caused by an ignored cavity that festers to the point of infection) occurs which in turn can cause gum disease. The bacteria from your infected tooth can harbor in the gums and cause inflammation even leading to periodontal diseases that may lead to gum recession, more loss of teeth, or many other severe health problems
The repercussion of leaving a cavity untreated transforms it from minor to major and can serve as the entry point for other dental problems that may ripple into health issues. The viability of a more passive dental approach is simply not an option, considering the ramifications of what happens when you let a cavity go unchecked.
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