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Jose · Know Your Mouth

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Dental claims, checked against the actual studies.
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Why does cold make a tooth hurt? Not through the enamel. Enamel has no nerves.

Underneath is dentine, threaded with tiny fluid-filled channels running in towards the nerve. Uncover it, and cold, sweet or acidic things move that fluid. The nerve reads it as a short, sharp pain.

Most often, what uncovered it is gums pulling back from the root. Or enamel worn thin by acid, or by hard brushing. It's common: about a third of people, pooled across 39 studies.

Pain that lingers, wakes you up, or hurts when you bite isn't this kind. See a dentist.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#sensitiveteeth #toothsensitivity #dentalfacts #oralhealth by @checkedbyjose

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a day ago

Can a tooth heal itself? At one stage, yes. After that, no.

Enamel loses mineral to plaque acid after sugar, and saliva puts calcium and phosphate back. When more goes out than comes back, you get a chalky white spot. Its surface is still intact, so mineral can go back in, helped by fluoride.

A cavity is when that surface collapses. Nothing grows enamel back, so a cavity is filled, or it gets bigger. You can't reliably tell which one you have by looking. A dentist can.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#cavities #remineralization #dentalfacts #oralhealth by @checkedbyjose

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2 days ago

Nano hydroxyapatite sounds advanced. On the tube, it's a legal category, not a quality grade.

Under EU law, nano means at least one dimension between 1 and 100 nanometres. The ingredient list must then say (nano) in brackets, and the material gets a separate safety review. Neither says it works better. In the US there's no such rule.

We read the four human trials behind hydroxyapatite and decay. Two say microcrystalline in the title; the other two don't give a particle size. None says nano.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#hydroxyapatite #toothpaste #dentalfacts #oralhealth by @checkedbyjose

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3 days ago

Natural teeth whitening. Most of it isn't whitening at all.

There are two jobs: removing stain that sits on the surface (coffee, tea, wine, tobacco), and changing the colour of the tooth itself. Baking soda and whitening pastes do the first, back to your own shade and no further. Only peroxide does the second.

Your own shade isn't pure white: natural teeth measure with a real yellow tint. And acids like lemon juice don't fix that; in a lab test, lemon juice dulled enamel and dissolved it away.

So ask first: are my teeth stained, or is this just my colour?

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#teethwhitening #naturalwhitening #dentalfacts #oralhealth by @checkedbyjose

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4 days ago

Mouth ulcers, or canker sores, that keep coming back? You've probably been told to avoid SLS toothpaste. SLS is the detergent that makes toothpaste foam.

Five small trials tested it in people who get ulcers again and again. Three found fewer ulcers without it: in the first, ten people averaged 14.3 ulcers over three months on an SLS paste and 5.1 without. One found no difference. One found as many ulcers, but they healed sooner and hurt less. None tested people who don't get ulcers.

Trying it? Give it six to eight weeks, and keep the fluoride.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#mouthulcers #cankersores #toothpaste #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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5 days ago

Flavoured sparkling water: no sugar, no calories, so basically water? Not for your enamel.

A UK lab study tested flavoured sparkling waters from the shop shelf. Every one was acidic, at pH 2.7 to 3.3 (plain water is 7, and each step down is ten times more acidic). In a test on tooth mineral, they dissolved 89% to 143% as much as pure orange juice, and half an hour on real teeth left the enamel surface eroded under the microscope. In a separate US study, the only drinks that didn't erode enamel at all were still, unflavoured waters.

So treat flavoured fizz like juice: with meals, not sipped all day.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#sparklingwater #enamelerosion #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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6 days ago

How much of an adult mouth has tartar on it? In one study, almost half of every tooth site checked.

Researchers in Porto Alegre, Brazil, examined 758 adults aged 35 to 59, at four sites on every tooth. Tartar was on 44.6% of them, and 96.5% of people had at least one site that bled. Tartar starts as plaque, the soft film you can brush away; minerals from your own saliva set it hard, and then only a dentist or hygienist can remove it.

In the same study, people who never cleaned between their teeth were about twice as likely to have widespread bleeding. That's a link from a survey, not proof of cause.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#tartar #plaque #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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7 days ago

"Wait 30 minutes after something acidic before you brush." Where did that rule come from?

Mostly from one small study: 11 volunteers wore samples of dentine, the layer under the enamel, in their mouths. The samples were dipped in a fizzy drink and brushed. Brushed within 20 minutes, they wore more; after 30, they didn't. But that was dentine, and most of what you brush is enamel.

A 2020 review found waiting made no significant difference on human enamel (it did help on cow enamel, which many lab studies use). A 2024 review concluded that brushing with fluoride toothpaste straight after an acidic drink can be recommended. Most of this is lab evidence, and if you already wait, it does no harm.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#brushingteeth #dentalmyths #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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8 days ago

Is hydroxyapatite toothpaste safe if you swallow some? Here's what the EU's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety actually said.

In 2015 and 2021 it could not conclude that the nano form was safe. In 2023 it called it safe up to 10% in toothpaste. In 2025 it raised that to 29.5%. Its reasoning: swallowed particles dissolve quickly in stomach acid, and uptake through the lining of the mouth is negligible.

But the verdict covers one defined material: rod-shaped particles, not coated, with needle-shaped particles excluded. Labels don't tell you particle shape. And safe is not the same as proven to prevent cavities.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#hydroxyapatite #toothpaste #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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10 days ago

Six biscuits. Eat them all at once, or one an hour. Same sugar, but your teeth don't see it the same way.

Every time you eat sugar, plaque bacteria turn it into acid within minutes. Below about pH 5.5, enamel starts losing minerals, and then saliva slowly brings the pH back up and puts minerals back. Six biscuits together is one acid dip. One an hour is six.

A 2026 review of 37 studies in children and teenagers found how often was a stronger driver of decay than how much. A 2019 review: cutting the amount without cutting how often doesn't seem to work. One limit: early white spots can recover, but a cavity that has broken through needs a dentist.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#toothdecay #sugar #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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11 days ago

Your gums bleed when you brush. Does the kind of fluoride in your toothpaste make any difference?

For cavities, no: a Cochrane review found no significant difference between the fluoride types. For gums, a 2026 review of 72 trials rated the evidence for stannous fluoride as moderate at three months. The effect is modest, and full recovery of the gums was rarely even reported. The often quoted 51% comes from 18 trials all sponsored by one toothpaste maker. US labels also warn it may cause surface stains.

Gums still bleeding after two weeks is a dentist question, whatever paste you use.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#bleedinggums #gingivitis #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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11 days ago

Oral probiotics are live bacteria in a lozenge or a chewable tablet. Do they work? It depends what for.

For bad breath, a 2025 review pooled ten trials: the sulphur gases behind the smell dropped significantly, but the possible range runs from a large effect to almost none. For cavities in children and teenagers, 19 trials and about 2,600 people: no effect. The breath review itself warns about small trials and publication bias.

The format matters: a lozenge stays in the mouth, a swallowed capsule goes straight past it. And in the trials they did best added to normal cleaning, never instead of it. Bleeding gums, or breath that is bad all day, is a dentist first.

Full breakdown: link in bio. Educational information, not personal dental advice.

#oralprobiotics #badbreath #oralhealth #dentalfacts by @checkedbyjose

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13 days ago