salt water and cavities

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johnmerrick

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10+ Year Member
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might be a little crazy but i have a sore throat 🙁 and was told to gargle with salt water 4 or more times a day and i was wondering if the salt water was bad for your teeth--could cause cavities?

thanks
 
advice is very valuable since it's very general and natural medicine (without hurting your liver with meds)... I don't think that saline will cause a caries or so since caries is caused by the lactic acid that are by-products of bacterial fermentation...I might even say that it may even inhibit growth of caries-causing bacteria. So go for it.
 
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As long as you don't do this excessively, it certainly won't hurt. As for whether this will remove a biofilm and pellicle, you'll likely need a brush or the like for definitive removal.
 
salt water would appear antiseptic at first...but the xerostomic effects it would/could cause might be more detrimental in the long run. might consider the literature though if you want a definitive answer.
 
It won't do anything bad to your teeth.

Water tends to move from areas of hypotonicity to hypertonicity. In the case of gargling salt water, water tends to move from bacterial cells into the salt water, thus kinda killing the bacteria if it's concentrated enough. That's what you're doing by gargling salt water, killing bacteria.

Perhaps you should try a simple anti-flammatory like Advil. Or a throat spray. Or even Listerine if you just want to kill bacteria.
 
As I know salt is good for teeth, in fact there are still people who use salt in cleaning teeth. It's good because it's natural and inexpensive..