Maybe 4 years ago I swapped from Sensodyne to Arm and Hammer sensitive since I found it more effective at cleaning my teeth. Just this week I swapped from Arm and Hammer to another brand since my teeth no longer felt clean after a brushing – the difference was immediate.

I understand there’s tons of reasons I may have experienced that, but it got me wondering if bacteria can adapt to the toothpaste you use if you stick with the same kind for years?

I have a dentist appointment set up for Tuesday to look at my teeth, one is knocked out, one was chipped in 2 spots and has mostly fallen out and another one if chipped in half. I have stitches in my mouth and on my lip so my dental care has been very poor since then as it is incredibly difficult to brush (I’m usually great with it)

Essentially anyway, I have two main questions, I need advice to cleanse my teeth because it is incredibly difficult with all these stitches, and if it matters how long my teeth are out before I get replacements, I’m worried about the gums healing

I am a dental student. One of our case requirement include periodontal treatment on a patient with generalized periodontitis. So I found a patient who is willing and upon starting the full-mouth periapical, my “juniors” approached me and requested for a collaboration on my case as requirement for their perio subject. Basically, they will do the full-mouth xrays, probing, computations, documentation, and all of the stuff needed (of course, I will help them). After they will report the case in class, they will return all of the diagnostics to me and I will proceed with the actual treatment. I agreed, of course, for this is beneficial for me and them. Fast forward to now, the instructor said she will not be returning the full-mouth PAs, and I should do another set for my clinical case.

A little background, our school’s treatment plan require:

1. an initial full-mouth PA

2. Another set (not necessarily full mouth) of multiple PAs deemed necessary by the instructor after scalings and such

3. Final full mouth PAs after all treatment is done.

If I will push through with what the instructor said, I will be exposing my patient an addition of 20 more PAs. I have searched online and I am getting mixed information. What’s your thought on this? Should I get another patient so as not to expose him to multiple PAs or not? The patient also expressed concerns over radiation.

It seems like every 6 months, I have “apparently harmless” black things on my teeth that always has to be removed. No signs of tooth decay so far (unless my dentist is hiding something). My bottom teeth are fine, but my top teeth, especially the tippy top part, always turns black. Is my brushing method wrong, then? I always have these things for 5 months without any harm (unless again, my dentist is hiding some serious illness from me), so I don’t know if they’re cavities or not. Online doesn’t help, either. It just tells me to brush better but I AM! I’m losing my mind. This has been a problem ever since I was in 6th grade, and now that I’m a senior I need to get to the bottom of this.

If a photo is needed I can take it. It’s 3am now though for me so cya

Please help.

It’s Thursday, 4am, and I picked up an occlusal guard “deprogrammer” on Tuesday (I thought this was just a mouth guard, but I might be wrong). I didn’t have headaches or anything like that before using this. They just said that I clench/grind in my sleep and it was wearing down my teeth, so I agreed to pay nearly 400 bucks for this piece of plastic. Well, it’s causing soreness in my cheekbones and I’m hoping this pain will subside? All I was told was that it might be uncomfortable, but I assumed that as people don’t normally sleep with something in their mouth. I didn’t realize soreness was a possibility.

My main question is: IS soreness a possibility? Is this supposed to be happening? Or is it causing more damage as a result? The thing is, I’m upset about the possibility of having to go back to the dentist. These people had me do x rays day one, and I was supposed to do cleaning same day, but they apologized for being overbooked and had me reschedule a second visit to do the cleaning, then I did the impressions day of cleaning and had to come back about 2 or 3 weeks later to pick up the mouthguard. In the process of all this, they overcharged me twice, but took it off (though I doubt they would have said anything if I hadn’t asked them to). I’m a new patient here and want to have 1 dentist that I like and return to for the sake of my dental health, but I haven’t had a great experience yet. Please tell me that this “deprogrammer” situation isn’t their final nail in the coffin, and it IS doing what it’s supposed to?

PS: Will ibuprofen help???