I don’t understand dental science, but what is stopping dentists from creating a 3D model of what a tooth would look like if there was no decay, then building a cap made out of minerals that either replicate or are better than the enamel’s normal mineral makeup (hydroxyapatite, fluoroapatite, whatever else) and then bond it with the decayed section of tooth to restore the lost enamel?
I thought fillings were more for cavities, and I don’t think they replace lost enamel.
Isn’t that sort of thing called a “crown”? My dentist loves to install them. Keeps up the payments on his yacht.
I would assume he is talking about something more like they would paint onto a tooth or something like that.
My guess, $1000 crown or $100 enamel treatment…which would you prefer to sell.
If the dentist down the street is selling $100 enamel treatments, I think I’d take the $100 over nothing myself…
A crown doesn’t replace the lost enamel, it just covers the decayed tooth. It is like the difference between filling a hole with dirt vs covering it up with a piece of plywood.
a crown restores the original contour.
Dentists frequently use resins to repair chipped teeth (Google “dental bonding”). They basically spackle a gob of resin onto the tooth, shape it appropriately, and harden it under UV light. While it’s similar to what you describe, it’s not quite as hard/durable as natural tooth enamel or typical crowns and fillings. Due to this they’re mostly used for cosmetic reasons, like a chipped front tooth. They do have the advantage of being very cheap, quick, and easy to install.
I’ve been grinding my top front teeth down. My dentist recommended all sorts of stuff to fix the underlying problem, none of which I’d be willing to tolerate. Instead I asked her to simply build them up a couple millimeters and I’d grind that down, and do it again when needed.
She did a fantastic job of it – my front teeth feel better than they have in years. That was about 7 years ago. I think I’ll need it redone in 3 years. I don’t know what the stuff is, but it feels like teeth to my tongue.
If that’s not pretty close to what the OP is asking about, I don’t know what is.
Of course, when we get a root canal, they kill the tooth but leave it in place, and replace the top with a crown. And there are also implants – I don’t know much about those but I guess they go all the way to the bone, with the artificial material. My cousin, a dentist, put in a whole set for his mother. Her teeth look great. I heard through the grapevine it was a $30K job. I don’t know whether that’s the street price or mom’s discount.
It’s pretty amazing what they can do.
I have two perfectly healthy molars that have crowns. The crowns are specifically due to the fact that I have bruxism and ground my enamel off down to the yellow dentin on those two teeth. No cavities, no decay, no root canals. Just, as my dentist called them, “little helmets.” Not plywood, gold.
In a couple of other teeth, where I did have “decay” as in two cavities, and another molar that chipped on a chewing surface, I have composite fillings. I don’t know what that stuff is made of, but considering I clench and grind my teeth, it’s held up for over a decade. I would say those are like being filled with concrete, to stay with your analogy.
Now, another thing that it seems like you’re asking is why can’t they build the tooth back up to what it looked like before the damage or wear? I’m not sure if that’s exactly what you’re asking, but I’ll take a stab anyway.
What the tooth is “supposed” to look like prior to the damage is irrelevant, unless the whole mouth and therefore the whole bite is being reconstructed. The reason this is true is because as a tooth wears down over time, the tooth opposite also wears down in a pattern that keeps the bite even and comfortable. If a dentist were to “rebuild” one tooth to what it looked like 10 years ago, that tooth would be too tall. That would cause bruising and damage to the tooth it opposes in the mouth, would be difficult to chew and would hurt like holy hell. So the only way the enamel can be restored to its original thickness would be to build up every tooth in the mouth to match.
That’s why even the most simple crowns, like mine, over an otherwise healthy tooth, require the crown to match exactly the specs of what’s there presently, despite the fact the teeth are nearly flat and don’t have the nice four-point tops that un-ground molars have. In order to fit the new covering, the healthy tooth still needs to have just enough surface removed to accommodate the thickness of the replacement “enamel” of the crown.
So, technically, dentists could *rebuild *enamel, but they can’t do it for just one tooth. A whole mouth restoration would be a really expensive solution to just putting a crown on the one.
I read something recently about French research into a sort of patch that can heal cavities in a tooth. Or did I dream that?
A root-canaled tooth doesn’t necessarily need to be crowned. I have several root canals, and some of those just have fillings to top off the hole that the dentist drilled in the tooth. The endodontist reams out the inside of the tooth and packs it with something then puts a “temporary” filling on top of that. Then he sends me back to the regular dentist who, a week or two later, drills out the temporary filling and puts in a permanent filling.
There is a substance called Recaldent that aids in restoring minerals to enamel, although it can’t repair a hole in the enamel. It’s in Trident Xtracare.
There is a wiki on tooth remineralization Remineralisation of teeth - Wikipedia
Fluoride and keeping your mouth moist and neutral to slightly alkaline seem to be your best bet
The biggest culprit is s mutans bacteria pooping acid on your teeth, although there are food and beverages with low ph that can also be enamel damaging. these guys have engineered a version of s mutans that kills out your native version and poops alcohol instead of lactic acid Oragenics, Inc. (OGEN)
I forgot about this, it’s a gel with a hormone that encourages bone growth that could repair cavities. i could not find an article newer than 2010, so no idea on the availability of this yet http://news.discovery.com/tech/tooth-regeneration-gel.html
And these guys seem to be making headway into regrowing entire teeth Toothless No More - Researchers Using Stem Cells to Grow New Teeth although there is more than one effort than theirs going on
For my root canal, the dentist wanted to put in a crown. I couldn’t afford it, so I told him to just put in a filling. He really tried to fight me on it. I asked him which would be better - putting in a filling or putting in nothing at all. He said that since I’d waited a while between the root canal and the final repair, the tooth had become “recontaminated” and needed to have another root canal done.
I told him that wasn’t going to happen, put a filling in it, and stop talking all that nonsense. This fool wanted me to have a second root canal done, then a crown. Total of about 3 grand. I couldn’t barely afford the first root canal for $850. Some dentists are just not in the same world as their patients. When I say I can’t afford it, and to do the cheaper option, it’s because I really can’t afford it. Why would I be lying about that? As though I’m going to not pay my rent or buy groceries for a month or two but instead pay for a dental treatment…
This filling has lasted several years so far. Guess he did a good job 
Fuji epoxy was used on one of my back teeth, i’m a real dental phobic so it suited me, 30 seconds and its done. Feels like real tooth too. Sadly it falls off about once a year and for the last three times he’s glued another bit on. Sadly he says next time its a cap… if i don’t bite him first!
Why? If it just a cavity, which is what the OP seems to be saying (decay, not wear), it would be the same as existing techniques, only with the same material that natural enamel is made of, which has obvious advantages in bonding to surrounding tooth material and should last indefinitely (unless another cavity formed, but it would have to erode a solid plug of enamel, not a thin layer). As for why they can’t use natural enamel material, it is probably because it can’t be easily made into a substance that can be applied as a paste and cured in a few seconds (when they shine the blue light in your mouth after a filling, at least resin ones).
Of course, all of this could be a moot point if they would get to work on a caries vaccine (replace harmful acid-producing bacteria with good ones that don’t produce acid) and give it to everybody. Shouldn’t be that hard to do, would be similar to fecal bacteriotherapy.
Yes, “temporary” fillings for root canals can last a good while. I’ve got one that was done nearly two years ago which is still fine. My mother has had one for nearly 10 years and it’s still going strong. That said, I had a root canal done on the other side of my mouth several years ago and first the temporary filling, and then the remaining bit of tooth, totally disintegrated. I’ve got an implant there now, which cost over £3,000 - I only made the last payment about a year ago!
Parents: send your children to dental school!
It’s funny if you search the Internet you always see studies about them being able to regrow teeth. There was one in NYC last, year, in Alberta in 2006 and Des Moines (I guess they have a big dental college there) a few years back.
They all say it works but nothing ever comes out of it. Maybe the teeth never stop growing 
It helps if you’re a beaver.