Children's caries treatment

For energy producing purposes, bacteria use carbohydrate compounds, including starch. The end products of bacteria's life circle are acids; the acids after 20 minutes being in an oral cavity begin to demineralize enamel of tooth (this is the hardest tissue in our body!), in the other words, to wash out basic minerals from there: calcium, fluorine, phosphorus, etc., forming its structure.

Caries development occurs in several stages, each stage has different depth of tooth damage.

Initial caries

At first, a stain of white or yellow color appears under a plaque – the initial caries or stain stage caries. The caries in the stain stage usually has no symptoms, sometimes an increased sensitivity from chemical substances (sour, sweet, salty food) can occur. Timely and properly conducted treatment can stop further development of decay.

Interfacial caries

If you do not carry out proper treatment, the process is going deeper, this area becomes soft and a small cavity is formed under it – interfacial caries. This type of caries causes pains from chemical substances – sour, sweet, salty food. This stage often has no symptoms, which does not allow to identify the process on early stages of tooth damage. If tooth will be left without any treatment, the cavity will increase and reach dentin, it will be medium or deep caries.

Medium caries

It can be described as enamel of tooth and part of dentin (tissue inside the tooth) damage. A pain can arise from eating sweet, salty, cold, hot food. Sometimes symptoms may not be included.

Deep caries

Enamel and most of dentin are damaged. At this type of caries short-term, more expressed pains from all kinds of irritants are registered. The ingestion of food into the cavity may disturb patient, which immediately leads to severe pain.

Features of children's caries development

Children 's caries has not the same development in different years. It is influenced by anatomical and physiological characteristics, general body resistance, as well as high responsiveness of childhood. Let us start with features of development and types of caries of childhood.

1. Caries of temporary teeth have imperceptible development, much faster than caries of permanent teeth, especially after illness with antibiotics treatment. Unlike permanent teeth, the resistance of temporary ones against caries is much lower due to their structure. Firstly, the enamel is less mineralized; secondly, the dentinal tubules are wider and shorter in comparison with permanent teeth; thirdly, the lack of pulp activity has influence. Consequently, the carious process in childhood quickly develops from its initial forms to adverse events, like pulpitis and periodontitis. It can occur asymptomatically due to spread of infection through wide dentinal tubules, therefore, in order to make an accurate diagnosis, a mandatory radiographic examination is required before treatment in order to avoid diagnostic faults. It is very important to contact with a specialist in case of suspicion of tooth decay, and not to wait for the moment of strong and unbearable pain – it will prevent adverse events in the future and will keep the child's teeth in good condition. Please note, when parents detect a carious cavity at home – this is, in general, minimum a deep caries!

2. The characteristics of children's caries is its multiple nature (all 20 temporary teeth can be affected). All tooth surfaces can be affected, dental crowns in a short time are destroyed completely, pulp dies and only dental roots remain in the jaw. The damage occurs consistently and spreads to all the teeth shortly after cutting out, by 3-4 years a child can lose all tooth.

3. Caries affects the entire surface of front teeth of upper jaw of very young children (up to one and a half to two years old) as usual. It is so called "milk bottle caries". It develops in babies, who are fed from bottle at night or the bottle is used as sedative for putting child into the dream. The liquid of the bottle may contain easily fermentable carbohydrates, even if it contains milk, juices, sweet sour milk products. In addition, the "milk bottle caries" occurs in case of chaotic and prolonged breast feeding. Salivation decreases during sleep, and natural self-cleaning of the oral cavity becomes less effective. In this situation carious affects almost all surface of front teeth, which were cut out not so long ago, because the enamel of them is immature and undurable.

4. Children of two to three years old have caries in fissures, in the other words, in enamel pits (grooves, dimples) on masticatory tooth surface. The traces of food are stick there. If they are narrow and deep, the self-cleaning process is stopped there. The tooth brush hardly can help with this. Microorganisms gradually multiply there with simultaneous acid production. The acid has destroying effect on teeth. The acid dissolves the surface of the upper enamel layer – initial caries or caries of stain stage appears. It can be detected only by dentist at appointment. Caries can be prevented at this stage. With no treatment this type of caries will penetrate into the tooth deeper, hitting the enamel, then – the dentin. As a result it becomes interfacial, then – medium and then – deep caries.

5. Children older than three years can have caries also on the contact surfaces of teeth, i. e. in the areas of the highest retention of food residues, where tooth brush can hardly reach them.

What methods of caries treatment of temporary teeth we apply?

The choice of the method depends on depth, localization and duration of carious process, psychological training of young patient. The up-to-date methods of anaesthesia (including computer-controlled anaesthesia) and modern dental equipment make it possible to remove pain completely during dental treatment, the advanced methods of caries treatment keep to a minimum drills application.

The combination of modern technologies and methods allows to use dental procedures with maximum comfort and safety for patients. Please, trust the doctor's experience and together with him you will choose the best way of caries treatment for your child.