Teeth: I reckon its luck amd genetics rather than how you look after them.....

[DrNortherner]

My ds is 6. Dentist yesterday could not praise enough just how beautiful ds's teeth are.

They are strong and white and healthy and he has not yet lost one milk tooth.

Friends dd the same age has had 3 removed due to decay and protective coating on the rest.

my ds eats sweets and chocolate, the ocassional fruit shoot, and on ocassions has not brushed his teeth before bed.

Friend has been fanatical about brushing her dd's teeth sometimes more than twice a day. Limits sweets and never juice or fruit shoots.

I agree... I have a raging dentist phobia, didn't go for 5 years in my mid-twenties and when I went again came out with 2 fillings only, my first 2 ever. (I do brush them, but not extremely so).

I have a tendency to tartar and sometimes wonder whether the two are linked.

i have good teeth.....avoided my dentist for years (lots of treatment as a teenager left me with a fear of the dentist) but i finally kicked myself up the backside to go back after ds was born because i have sensitive/bleeding gums. My hygienist told me i am prone to gum disease as there is family history of it (i'd heard there could be a hereditary link, but wasn't sure whether to believe it).....

unfortunately i am having to try and combat it myself because i cannot get an NHS dentist and can't afford the hygienist regime my dentist laid out for me.

as it happens i'm off for my 6 month check this morning! (we need a nervous emoticon)

definately genetic, i drink gallons of coke and eat quite alot of other sweet stuff, and i smoke (bad for receeding gums?) never had a filling or any other dental stuff done

every time i go for a check up my dentists tells me what good care i take of my teath and how i obviously dont drink fizzy drinks ever - i just dont have the heart to tell him how wrong he is!

I brush once a day, eat sugary crap, drink squash and have no cavities. I am so lucky and I know it. The only problem I have is stained teeth through too much squash - my teeth have a slightly yellow tinge and no matter how much I brush it never fades

I think it's genetic too (I think most health things are actually though of course you can make a difference at the margin).

I have good teeth and I take no care of them really. Only brush in the morning and certainly no flossing. Bloody hate flossing. Dentists only ever tell me how good my teeth are and say if anything I brush too much (which is why I stopped at night).

ComeOVeneer I heard it could be to do with how much saliva you had and that more would wash away debris more easily. Is that true? It sounds true. A friend who did all the right things teeth-wise ended up with 22 fillings but his dentist told him he had a very dry mouth and that was the main problem.

I'm going to disagree here.

I had a gorgeous set of gnashers but I know that they are yellowing due to coffee, red wine and tobacco abuse and that my mum was right when she told me not to open things with my teeth cos the front ones are all raggeddy.

I cannot look at some people's teeth without thinking of that fabulous episode of the Simpsons where the dentist scares Lisa into getting braces by showing her 'The Big Book of British Smiles'.

I floss my teeth now but I don't know who else buys the stuff because, as a nation, our teeth are horrific!

oh and I have had root canal treatment. Twice. Once when I was pg and the dentist started to drill without anaethetising properly because he 'didn't have a drill long enough'.

my face was so twisted with ineffective anaesthetic that my contact lens popped out.

oh yeah I forgot about my root canal treatment - quite how I don't know because it took 9 visits. Long awful story but it turns out I have five canals to my teeth instead of the normal three? Who knew?

I think that was just bad luck though - cracked a tooth. Is there anyway to prevent that sort of thing because I sure as hell would like to avoid doing that again.

at the drill and the contact lens..

mandj, i'm not sure I even know what the root canal is... impressed by your five though.

top tip is to get all your dentistry done whilst on maternity leave, I got a lovely gold tooth for free! and a white one near the front, would have quite liked another gold one but thought it might be vulgar to ask!

No gold avaliable on nhs, minimal treatment done whilst pregnant these days. Dentist talking cr*p about length of drill etc I'm afraid!

Genetics plays a huge part, but environmental factors will contribute greatly if you have weaker teeth, less so if they are strong, but affect you they will!

I suspected as much about drill CoV. That's why I made him stop, despite still being in excruciating pain. Had to go private in the end, it still hurt but it wasn't scary!

I did get gold on NHS though, this was only a few years ago, has it changed then?