1. Excessive Dry Mouth 

Saliva helps to prevent tooth decay by washing away food in your mouth and keeping plaque from building up on your teeth. Saliva also contains a variety of natural substances that negate the acidic damage caused by bacteria in your mouth. Unfortunately, several drugs may trigger dry mouth and increase your risk of cavities. 

For example, chemotherapy drugs and radiation for cancer may cause dry mouth that can be hard to counter. Oddly, you may worsen this condition if you drink a lot of water. The excessive fluid will wash away the saliva present in your mouth and could trigger worsened cavities. 

You can counter this problem if you chew some sugar-free gum and eat fiber-rich foods. These items will stimulate more saliva production in your mouth and minimize the severe impact dry mouth may have on your oral health. 

2. Sugary Eating Habits 

Some people have an intense sweet tooth that compels them to eat a large number of sugary foods, such as ice cream, honey, various sodas, dried fruits, cookies, and even dry cereal. These foods increase your production of plaque and make cavities a more persistent problem. 

Even worse, many of these foods stick to your teeth instead of being washed away easily by saliva, which further increases your risk. Thankfully, you can eat foods like carrots and other hard vegetables to promote saliva production and break away these food buildups. 

3. Poor Dental Hygiene 

If you don’t take the time to properly brush your teeth — including care with fluoride toothpaste — there’s a good chance that you’ll develop more severe cavities. This point may seem obvious but can be complicated by other outside factors to create an even worse situation that may become uncontrollable without outside help.

For example, you may have reasonably good oral hygiene most of the time but forget to brush when at work or while camping. Thankfully, a simple switch to regular cleaning methods — and a schedule of routine dental appointments — can make cavities easier to handle on your own and a less common and persistent problem.

4. Intense Heartburn 

Heartburn is more than a painful stomach problem; it can also cause severe dental decay. During a bout of this disease, stomach acid will flow right up into your mouth and may cause damage to your teeth. And when combined with high levels of plaque caused by poor dental management, this stomach acid may increase your risk of cavities and their severity. 

Unfortunately, this problem may be unpredictable and hard to manage because some people react very strongly to a multitude of foods. For example, you may get heartburn every time you eat foods flavored with garlic, while others who experience heartburn may not. Learn which foods trigger your heartburn and consciously steer clear of them to prevent cavities.

Skilled Dental Help Is Available 

This multitude of problems may be hard to address if you don’t get professional help to learn more about the ways you influence cavity creation. So if you are sick of cavities and need help to prevent their development, make sure to contact us at Cherry Hill Dentistry today. We can address your oral health in productive ways and will work hard to ensure that your teeth remain healthy.