Active Dental Survival

I’ve been meaning to do a post about dental health for some time now. It’s a subject that had been weighing on my mind because I hadn’t had a check up in a few years and the other day a filling from a molar fell out along with a piece of tooth. I also noticed that I started to have dental dreams so my sub-conscious was worrying about it too. This is my usual, cowardly modus operandi – wait for a dental emergency and then drag myself to the dentist. This is not what I would call Dental Active Survival at all. The Active Survivalist should go to the dentist once a year for a check up and a professional clean. After all you’re going to need those teeth for the next hundred years or so.

Amazingly I managed to get the tooth fixed up without needing to get it crowned and the rest of my teeth were fine. The most worrying thing about my teeth was some side wear of the enamel caused by over-enthusiastic brushing. I must say modern dentistry is marvellous with highly effective and painless anaesthetics and super rapid drilling. There is no excuse not to go to the dentist regularly. (I always think like this after a successful foray to the dental centre)

I’ve always thought that the enamel on teeth, once gone, was gone forever. However this may not be true. Head over to Whole Health Source for a discussion on diet and reversing tooth decay. I highly recommennd Stephen's blog to anyone interested in diet. It appears that teeth can, to a certain extent, heal themselves and this healing can be greatly assisted by a good diet. The main culprit for tooth decay may not be refined sugars but the starches found in gooey breads and cakes. These tend to stick to your teeth and are perfect food for bacteria. Many people have found that once they started eating a Paleo type of diet their teeth required less brushing and plaque build up was minimal to non existent. I noticed that the sonic cleaning or whatever it is the Dentist just gave me was over and done with very quickly this time whereas last time it was quite painful and lengthy.

If teeth can heal themselves, and it makes sense that they do, it would be very worthwhile to adopt a diet that assists this. Especially if it results in a leaner, healthier body as well. I’m going to make more bone broths and am even more determined now to cut bread out of my diet completely. Let’s see if I can heal up that wear on the side of my teeth. I'll keep you posted.