Scale and polish ruined my teeth

Kittenjane1234

I went for a private dentist in York for check up and scale and polish. My teeth are all natural, and I look after them, there have been no fillings, etc. I also went to see dentist, roughly once a year to have them checked out.

But over the years, I am 32, the front teeth have stained quite a bit. After paying 60 pounds for checking up, I was recommended to have a scale and polish, and see how they would look like, then if needed maybe another 500 pounds for whitening. So I paid another 59 pounds for a simple scale and polish with cold air flow. But it has been almost two months now since my treatment, and my teeth are still very sensitive. Shame I couldn't upload the picture, if I could, you would see there are tiny cracks developed at the front of my teeth. I remember I was in agony, when he was cleaning the front teeth, and he commented, 'these are a bit sensitive, but still pressed on'. I am a bit concerned, what should I do now? Obviously I haven't taken the pictures before the treatment, so I can't really provide that he has done that to my teeth, but I am 100% certain the graze lines were not there in the first place. Even if there were any, they weren't so obvious. Now these craze lines aren't obvious from a distance, but having them on my front teeth, isn't really nice.... I feel gutted, I look after my teeth the best possible way I can, but ....

Any recommendation please?

brook2jack

The enamel on teeth is the hardest substance in the body. It's so hard the only way to cut it is by using diamond tipped drills , nothing else will cut it.

The powder used in air flow type machines is normally bicarbonate of soda or a special mineral bio glass. The scalers use ultrasound to "shake" the stain and calculus off your teeth.

In other words even if your teeth very heavily stained and needed a lot of scaling it would be impossible to create this sort of damage.

However this sort of crazing is very common in people who brux , that is people who grind or clench their teeth at night. The force used in bruxing is equivalent to that on an elephants foot and it can go on for years undetected.

These teeth can be very sensitive to hold and cold (hence the pain when scaling) and pick up staining easily because of the micro cracks. The staining may mask some of the appearance of the cracks which is why they are noticeable now.

If grinding /clenching is the cause the teeth are unlikely to break as the cracks will only be in the enamel, but in the long term they may well wear down , so you should go back to your dentist to discuss this with them. http://www.yourdentistryguide.com/bruxing/

roddydogs

Well, obviously contact the dentist, then is there no NHS dentist available. Lot cheaper.

tamimurphy

Explain your problem to the dentist and tell him that you are not satisfied with his service.

justme111

What could happen is that with removal of hard deposits (calculus on your teeth) which likely was there the surface of the teeth which was previously covered by it is open now and is sensitive. It happens , it does not mean your teeth are damaged. I never seen or heard of cracks developing from scaling , what usually happens that as stain is off and patient has sensitivity he/she looks at their teeth , notices lines that been there for ages, makes wrong conclusions and panics.
Some desensitising toothpaste , rubbing it in , changing it if one does not help , may be going for a dentist for fluoride varnish application and making him aware of how it was for you so that they are attentive to not being heavy handed next time.
There is a small chance that teeth may need further treatment , so would be safer to see dentist anyway, specially if pain keeps awake at night or is getting worse.