White spots turned to cavity, dentist wont do anything!

[riyam3]

So I read a lot about braces before getting them and I knew u could get white spots via not brushing well, my friends had white spots, so I get my braces on and after about 4 months I notice a white spot on my front bottome tooth n im like oh dang, so I brush more and use mouthwash and use more of the bottle brush thing or proxy brush, later its getting worse and growing, I tell my dentist she says its glue, then next appointment after it gets worse she says its an 'infection' im not brushing well enough, so weeks go by its gotten bigger and more noticeable now, as well as other teeth gaining white spots and eventually a bit of grey appeared on the initial white spot and im FREAKING out, im brushing like crazy, im not even eating as much, so the next appointment I tell the dentist and he says he cant see anything when clearly its there, because I showed it to my dad and friends and they see it, so then days go by its slightly worse, in fact now I don't even touch the food to my incisors anymore I just cut it into tiny chunks and I don't bite my food I just mush it up with back teeth and swallow it, and brush realllllly well as much as possible, few days ago I noticed with a x7 magnifying mirror that i had about 2 more veryyyy tiny around the glue of my bracket just beginning to grow and im wondering y on earth some of my friends with braces don't have any issues and I got a tonne of them, im scared when I take off my braces ill have discoloured teeth with cavities and white spots. I did my research, turns out my ortho was meant to 'clean' the tartar or plaque off every appointment (at least that's what my friends do every appointment, get their wires out and teeth all cleaned in a cleaning session) but all my ortho does is replace the wire every appointment. He doesn't check or clean, so the tartar built up like crazy and now Im so upset about this permanent damage what should I do, could I charge him or something?

[chrislee]

get a new dentist

[metalliKa]

No, a deep cleaning is not the job of an ortho.

[sirwired]

In neither round of orthodontics (both as a kid, and recently) did I receive a dental cleaning with ANY appointment. I don't even think many ortho's even employ dental hygienists, so it wouldn't even be legal to get a cleaning done there unless the ortho did it him/herself, which would take more than a bit too long.

Unless a dentist has probed it (done with a thin and flexible wire pick) and declared you have a cavity, you probably don't have a cavity.

As far as your dietary habits go... Do you routinely snack on anything with carbohydrates, or drink any beverages containing sugar (even honey in hot tea counts...) between meals?

I think you also might be noticing things that you've had forever... not even a dentist uses a 7x magnifying glass to look at your teeth. You could very well be seeing minor fluorosis spots. (A very significant number of kids who grew up drinking fluoridated water have them; they are nearly invisible without super-close examination and harmless.)

On brushing: Don't brush "hard"; let the stroking action do the work... you only need to press hard enough for the bristles to maintain solid contact with your teeth. Brushing hard will only damage your gums and teeth (and the brush), and won't get your teeth any cleaner; plaque simply doesn't take much force to remove. You should use the softest brush available in whatever brand you choose and brush for at least two minutes.