A frog in hot water

There’s an urban legend out there that claims a frog placed in a pan of boiling water will quickly jump out, while a frog placed in a pan of room-temperature water, with the heat then slowly increased, will just sit there until cooked.

While I have my doubts as to the scientific accuracy of this claim, it serves a useful analogy to your teeth.  No, I’m not kidding.  The key is the difference between an acute attack on a tooth and a chronic attack.  An example of an acute attack would be a large piece suddenly breaking off.  One second everything’s fine, the next second your tooth is screaming “Ahhhhhh!  Fix me!”

On the other hand, an example of a chronic attack would be a slow-growing cavity; this type of attack is sneaky and most often painless, sometimes even when the cavity gets into the nerve and kills it.  This happens because the body has a remarkable ability to adapt and avoid pain, for better or worse.  The difficulty is that many people believe if something doesn’t hurt it must be OK; unfortunately most dental issues are painless until it’s too late, and then the cost to fix it will typically go up by a factor of ten.

The old medical axiom “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is particularly appropriate to your dental health, and this is the basis of our philosophy of care at McGann Family Dental.