This is a question that just came to me today. Here are just two examples of possible causes:

1. Obvious large/extensive decay which exposes the hot and cold food/beverages to the nerve inside the tooth.

2. Bite trauma. Excess pressure on a tooth when biting can cause the tooth to become sensitive to hot and cold. Grinding/clenching your teeth in your sleep can traumatize the bedding of nerves surrounding the root of your tooth. Following the episode of bite trauma, the tooth usually needs some time to recover, and the sensitivity can go away. However, repeated uncontrolled bite trauma to a tooth can cause the nerve inside the tooth to die, leading to the need for a root canal treatment.

If you experience consistent hot and cold sensitivity with your teeth, then be sure to bring it to your dentist's attention before the problem becomes more involved.

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Alex Nguyen, DDS is a Saratoga Dentist who practices General Dentistry, Cosmetic, and Implant Dentistry. For over 20 years the practice has been serving the residents of Santa Clara County and San Francisco Bay Area.

I do not like them. I am talking about products like Crest Pro-Health, Listerine Total Care, etc. Routinely, I am seeing more problems caused by these mouth rinses rather than benefits for my patients. The most common side effect manifests as sore spots on the gum tissue, the cheek tissue inside the mouth, and the inside borders of the lips.

If you have unexplained sore spots and have recently switched to some of these multi-purpose rinses and tooth pastes, try going back to just using the basic fluoride tooth paste. It may just be the solution to your problem if your family doctor cannot pin point the cause.

Simply put, you can rinse with any magic potion all you want, but if you do not spend the time to mechanically remove plaque with flossing and brushing then you are defying your home care effort.

The best prevention of decay and gum disease is flossing and brushing. This has not changed since the invention of the tooth brush and the dental floss. There is no such thing as a magical multi-purpose mouth rinse on the market today.

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