Can taking prescription medicine cause damage to your teeth?!
Question: I take a large amount of different medicines throughout the day: Ritalin, Neurontin, Wellbutrin, Namenda, Lyrica, Provigil, Mobic, Maxalt, hydrocodone, and a few others. I have started having a lot of cavities lately even though I brush and floss regularly. Is it possible that these meds have effected the tooth enamel.
Answers: I take a large amount of different medicines throughout the day: Ritalin, Neurontin, Wellbutrin, Namenda, Lyrica, Provigil, Mobic, Maxalt, hydrocodone, and a few others. I have started having a lot of cavities lately even though I brush and floss regularly. Is it possible that these meds have effected the tooth enamel.
There could be a couple of reasons for this. If the medications use some kind of sugar as a binding agent for the pills, that could be a contributing factor.
However, I would guess that the most likely reason for the increased cavities is that the medicines are making your mouth dry. There is a whole list of them that can do this, and if you are taking several it could cause some problems. With a decreased flow of saliva, your teeth become less able to resist the acids that the bacteria in your mouth make whenever you eat. This causes cavities. There are several steps you can take to help with cavities from a dry mouth, such as drinking lots of water throughout the day, home fluoride treatments, etc, but I would definitely get some advice from your dentist.
Yes they can. Currently I do not know which ones would do it.
But in the past Tetracycline was very hard on teeth and caused yellowing.
I also take a fair amount of medications. Read the side effects lists and chart them on all of your meds. That should help you see which ones are causing the problem.
Just to confirm. The tetracycline antibiotics only cause a problem in children under 12. They can cause staining because the drug binds to calcium and then gets 'taken up' by growing teeth (by bones too but of course you can't see these). So if you are an adult and your teeth are already grown this isn't a problem. This is also the reason pregnant women shouldn't take tetracycline antibiotics - when their child's teeth grow they can be stained (you often get a stripey effect).
I haven't really heard about other meds causing problems with teeth. Are they liquid medicines or chewable tablets? Have they got sugar in them?