Why your teeth hurt, and what actually stops it.

Five things wear the surface down. Most of them are habits, and most of them you can change.

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What sets yours off?

Tap it. They don't all mean the same thing.

Hot or cold drinks

Temperature makes the fluid inside those tiny tubes move, and the nerve reads that movement as pain. Cold is usually sharp and over in seconds. Hot builds more slowly and tends to ache. This is the most common kind, and usually the most fixable.

If hot pain hangs around after you swallow, see a dentist

What's actually going on

Your teeth have a hard shell on the outside. Underneath it are thousands of tiny tubes running down to the nerve.

While the shell is intact, nothing gets through and you feel nothing.

Wear that shell down, or let your gums pull back and leave the root uncovered, and the tubes are open. Cold, heat and sugar travel straight down to the nerve.

Sensitivity isn't your teeth being fussy. It's a gap in the armour.

Which is why the fix isn't to grit your teeth and put up with it. It's to stop making the gap bigger, and help close it.

Five things that wear it down

Most people have two or three of these going on at once.

  1. Brushing too hard

    The most common cause, and the easiest to fix. Hard bristles and heavy pressure wear the surface down and push your gums back at the same time.

  2. Acid

    Fizzy drinks, citrus, wine, vinegar — and reflux, if you get it. Acid softens the surface for about an hour. Brushing during that window scrubs it away.

  3. Gums pulling back

    Age, gum disease, or years of heavy brushing. When the gum moves, it uncovers the root, and the root has no hard shell over it at all.

  4. Grinding and clenching

    Usually at night, usually stress. It wears the biting surfaces flat. Most people who do it have no idea until a dentist points it out.

  5. Harsh whitening

    Peroxide is what bleaches teeth, and at high strength it's a well-known cause of sensitivity. In the UK, anything you're allowed to buy for yourself is capped at 0.1%. Testing of kits sold online has repeatedly found far more than that.

What a dentist looks for

A toothpaste has two jobs here. Stop adding to the wear, and help fill the gaps that are already there. Hydroxyapatite does the second one — it works on the sensitivity itself rather than numbing it.

Most whitening toothpastes just harshly scrub stains off the outside of your teeth. First, we have hydrated silica to gently polish stains away. Second, our paste contains pineapple and papaya enzymes that help to dissolve the stains that have built up on the teeth. Finally, hydroxyapatite which helps remineralize enamel and reduce sensitivity by filling microscopic defects on the surface of the teeth.

Dr Milad Shadrooh

Dr Milad Shadrooh

Clinical Director

Five things that actually help

  1. Use a toothpaste that rebuilds the surface

    Look for hydroxyapatite or fluoride. Both work by filling and sealing the tiny gaps, so less gets through to the nerve. It takes a few weeks, not a few days.

  2. Soft brush, light pressure

    Scrubbing hard wears the shell down and pushes your gums back. That's two of the main causes of sensitivity, both self-inflicted.

  3. Don't brush straight after anything acidic

    Fizzy drinks, citrus, wine and vinegar soften the surface for a while. Brushing right then scrubs it away. Wait an hour.

  4. If you grind, get it looked at

    A night guard costs less than fixing what grinding does over ten years. Your dentist can usually tell within seconds of looking.

  5. Give it time before you judge it

    Sensitivity built up over years. Most people notice a difference after three to four weeks of using the right paste twice a day.

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