The Mystery of the Thinning Enamel: Case Closed

I previously blogged about the state of my teeth. Some cavities, a cracked tooth, and thinning enamel on my front teeth. I had a deep cleaning done last month. Yesterday was the filling. And somehow I hadn't really realized how big the cavity was. Either that or it grew really quickly (which they say it can once it hits the dentin). They shot me up with Novocaine and dug out the cavity. And given the sensitivity and the fact that they had to give me two shots of Novocaine, they thought the decay might have hit the nerve and I'd need a root canal (I never really knew what a root canal was, but now that I do, ugh!). Thankfully, I narrowly escaped that.

In any event, they drilled out the cavity, then as they were preparing the filling, I explored it a little with my tongue. I had a hole nearly the size of my tooth in my tooth! Seriously! It was like a hole with a tooth shell around it. I couldn't get over how big it was, I still can't, it was nuts.

Anyway, during this whole cavity and filling process, I asked the doc about my thinning enamel (indicated by some yellowing of the teeth. Sometimes this means staining, in which case whitening is called for. Sometimes it means thinning enamel, which lets the yellow dentin underneath show through. In my case it's the later. And what sucks is that enamel doesn't grow back). I asked her why it might be thinning, and she went through the same things that the lady who cleaned my teeth mentioned - acidic stuff like juice, soda, possibly tomatoes (though they wouldn't be that bad). I rarely drink juice and infrequently drink soda. So I was still at a loss. Continue the filling process.

Then a lightbulb goes off in my head.

I eat a lot of fruit. My breakfast every morning is a fruit shake, something like this:

1 banana
2/3 of a half a cantaloupe or 1/3 container of defrosted strawberries
1 nectarine/peach/handful of blueberries
dash of water
2t flax seed oil
scoop of whey protein powder

I drink this (and it's usually a glass and a half worth of shake), then I brush my teeth and head out. Basically, the problems are twofold. The acid from the fruit gets on my front teeth as I drink the shake and sticks on the enamel. Then I go brush my teeth and the acid works as an abrasive to wear away the enamel. So I think I'm being so good and having fruit for breakfast and brushing my teeth, but really I'm wearing them away. You can't win sometimes, can you?

Or wait, maybe you can! The dentist then provided a solution for me, because she acknowledged that fruit is a very healthy option. Buy straws. Drinking my shake through a straw will send it right to the back of my mouth and bypass the front teeth completely. On top of that, rinse out my mouth with water before brushing my teeth just in case any of the fruit acid stuck on there. Woohoo, easy solution!