Is Aspirin Bad For Your Teeth?
Posted on: 15 April 2016
While an effective analgesic, aspirin is not without its side effects. In some cases, it may have negative effects on your teeth and gums. While many people have no dental issues from using aspirin, you may encounter problems if you take aspirin regularly and don't simply swallow tablets. How might aspirin affect your oral health?
Aspirin May Cause Tooth Erosion
While swallowing aspirin tablets doesn't affect your teeth, you may have problems if you use chewable aspirin tablets or chew regular tablets rather than swallow them. For example, when you chew a tablet, the aspirin comes into direct contact with your teeth. According to Colgate, eating an aspirin in this way may cause significant damage to your tooth enamel over time.
Aspirin May Burn Your Gums
If you have a toothache and look up ways to manage the pain quickly, you may be advised to apply an aspirin tablet directly on to the site of the pain. For example, you may be told to put an aspirin on the tooth to dissolve on it or to crush a tablet up and put the pieces on the tooth. This is considered to reduce toothache pain more quickly than swallowing a tablet.
According to the Queensland Government, this is not a good idea. As the aspirin tablet dissolves on to the tooth, it may also go on to your gum. This may burn your gum if it the tablet is concentrated on this soft tissue. You may reduce your toothache pain but may also be left with a painful gum that needs other treatment to fix the burn.
Aspirin May Make You Bleed More During Dental Procedures
If you take aspirin regularly it affects your blood's ability to clot quickly by thinning your blood. In some cases, this may make dental treatments more complex. If you bleed during treatment and your blood is thinner, the bleeding may take longer to stop. For this reason, myDr recommends that you don't use aspirin as a painkiller to manage a toothache as it may complicate things when your dentist treats the tooth.
In some cases, you can avoid the dental side effects of aspirin by swallowing tablets to keep them away from your teeth or by switching to a different kind of painkiller. However, some people have no choice but to take aspirin. For example, your doctor may have prescribed the drug because you have a heart problem, are a high stroke risk or have arthritis. In these cases, it's important to make your dentist aware that you take aspirin regularly, especially before having treatment. Your dentist will be better able to cope with any side effects with some advance warning.
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