Is it just people on meth tend to neglect dental care and don’t floss/brush? Or is there actually a chemical in meth that causes your teeth to go bad?
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Doctor here.
“Meth mouth”, or poor teeth due to methampheatmine abuse is caused by multiple reasons. The most important is likely because methamphetamine causes dry mouth, or xerostomia. The lack of fluid in the mouth results in any acids, sugars, bacteria from the food we eat and the environment not being washed off and sitting on the teeth for long periods. These directly break down enamel. This is similar to why lots of babies who drink milk all hours of the day get lots of cavities. The sugars are constantly sitting on the enamel and are food for the normal bacteria in the mouth, letting them overgrow and chew threw the enamel.
There is also contribution from a known “grinding” of the jaw methamphetamine abusers do. This causes the actual chipping and wearing down of the teeth after they’re made more fragile.
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