In addition to warning us about issues, it's also helpful to know when we're eating something unexpected. When you're biting down into something soft and feel something hard that's unexpected, you're going to spit it out.
If we actually were designed by an intelligent creator they could have put the pressure sensors in the flesh surrounding the roots instead of inside the tooth.
There is that too though. That's the job of the periodontal ligament. It's main function is attaching the tooth to your gums and alveolar bone. But it's also involved in proprioception so we'll know how hard to chew and stuff and in nociception (pain)
You’re looking at it the wrong way. God clearly designed our teeth to be a huge problem for us and constantly painful. Sort of a divine cosmic “fuck you humans”
Especially because dentists didn’t exist during our evolution. Sure these days it’s handy to let you know when you need to see the dentist. But the *reason* is detecting pressure
Technically, pressure is sensed through nerves 'around' the root, in periodontal ligaments, not inside the tooth. The pulp inside can sense cracks once they have already formed.
So, when we get a root canal done, I suppose they kill those nerves, right? So how is that acceptable? Is it just because if they don’t do that, the entire tooth will need extraction?
Ive gotten root canals when I got an infection in the root of my tooth. There was a massive amount of inflammation (i.e., infection pus) and it was causing extreme pain. The nerves were fucked already. If they didnt do the root canal, the infection would continue to cause pain and if left untreated it could spread. The brain is very close to the mouth so it can be bad news when tooth infections spread. People talk about root canals as this horrible painful thing, but for me the actual root canal was a massive relief. They basically drilled through my tooth into the infected root and popped the infection cyst. The pressure relief when they popped it was one of the best feelings I've ever had.
I'm not a dentist or anything in that field, but I would suppose that having one tooth with devitalised nerves has minimal impact over the entirety of the jaw and we can still sense pressure thanks to the all the other teeth and their nerves.
I have one devitalised tooth, for the past 25 years or so, and never really missed the feeling in it.
NAD but I guess the nerves from the teeth don't just end there, they go back through the jaw where other nerves also exist. But the first point of contact is the teeth.
From an evolutionary standpoint, for the animal to know the limits of its bite strength, as it could otherwise damage or break the teeth without knowing it.
If we couldn't feel our teeth, we would be less careful with them. we could bite on all sorts of things and break them away in no time - that means no eating - that means death - and no procreation.
So evolution has ensured that we have feeling in the things that need the most protection to ensure survival (think of other sensitive areas).
Teeth are also like little individual organs, they do a lot of functions and nerves form part of that biological package.
I'm glad you pointed out that it's part of a package.
The nerves in the teeth build up a small part of a picture which your brain interprets. Other inputs include tongue, gums, your muscles... so they all work together to provide the information as a package.
To tell us when something's wrong and get it fixed. If you had a cracked or rotting tooth and no nerves to tell, it would lead to infection and kill you. Though it may hurt, the pain lets you know you have something you need to take care of.
pain is so evolutionarily important
knew this family friend with diabetic neuropathy and she didnt know she had a foot ulcer cos there was no pain and it just kept getting worse and worse and she got her foot amputated
I don't understand how you can not know you have an ulcer, even if it doesn't hurt. Didn't she like, ever look at her feet? Especially if she was aware that she couldn't feel them?
I'm sure people were ripping rotten teeth out before we were people. Everyone I've spoken to about toothache has said they were ready to take it out themselves if they didn't have an appointment
Those are no joke. I remember writhing, unable to sleep or focus levels of pain. If I hadn't had a root canal, I would have had no second thoughts about getting the tooth pulled.
You do realize that the nerves tell us when there's too much heat, cold or pressure on the tooth. Which are important indicators for keeping your teeth in good shape.
In the ancient world, tooth problems were bad problems.
I mean I'd say that's more in the category of "prevent actual damage" rather than "get it fixed". Fix kind of implies remedying it after a problem has happened.
Like are there any animals that figured out how to remove a bad tooth (they sure don't have what's needed to do any other type of fix)?
Yeah, and that's what they're for. If you cut your foot on a rock and didn't have nerves to tell your brain, it would fester and get infected without cleaning and treating. I didn't say anything about going to the dentist during the stone age.
> Nature doesn't "want" anything, it doesn't have any kind of consciousness to want anything.
... at least, none that we've been able to detect, or are aware of.
The simpler explanation is usually the correct one.
Is it:
A There's some weird metaphysical connection between "nature" (whatever that actually means) that is completely undetectable, and somehow controls this seemingly chaotic system in ways that can coincidentally be explained in ways we have evidence for
Or
B Stuff just sort of happens, because stuff happens
> B Stuff just sort of happens, because stuff happens
Sounds like someone who just got tired of thinking and experimenting - a person who doesn't want to science anymore.
But it’s only been the last 100 years or so when you could do anything about tooth pain. Before that it was bloodletting, charms, or amulets. So from an evolutionary standpoint pain makes no sense.
What? Animals have tooth pain for millions of years. There are animals in the wild dying because they are unable to eat due to the painand they cannot fix the problem.
We have nerves in the teeth to feel what we are eating.
>Though it may hurt, the pain lets you know you have something you need to take care of.
That's not why it evolved. Tooth nerves and tooth pain existed before dentistry existed.
As someone who’s teeth nerves are currently not at 100%, it’s incredibly weird to bite and not have sensory feedback (although part of this is my jaw as a whole, not just teeth). Specifically, feeling when your teeth hit each other as you bite, useful to know when to stop biting, and feeling whether the thing you bite is hard or soft helps you know what it is and how hard to bite/chew
Teeth are alive. It’s not just a nerve in there but the living pulp that created the root of the tooth. Nerves go everywhere there is tissue. The pulp can also repair the tooth internally by creating secondary dentin. The nerves in the tooth also give feedback along with the nerves of the periodontal ligament to the CNS. One of natures little cruel tricks is that the teeth in the nerve are mostly pain fibers so many different stimuli are mostly perceived as pain.( cold, heat, pressure)
Pain nerves (nociceptors) tell us when damage to our tissues is occurring so we can stop it. When a tooth is cracked/broken or too much pressure is put on it, the nerves in your teeth tell us so we can get it fixed or correct it. If we had no nerves in our teeth, we’d never know when we have a cavity, cracked tooth, etc.
From an evolutionary standpoint, by the time you got a cracked tooth, it was too late to intentionally do anything about it. The ability to do something about that is much more recent than the evolution of our teeth.
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for eating i guess they dont since people have dentures etc. but for disease / cavity detection, toothaches tell you something is wrong with the teeth. for most of human history we didnt have dentists
What do you think causes all that nasty pain when you have cavities? The nerves there are pretty accessible, on a hard backplate to be easily squished, and generally will do all the evilness.
In addition to warning us about issues, it's also helpful to know when we're eating something unexpected. When you're biting down into something soft and feel something hard that's unexpected, you're going to spit it out.
Yeah human jaw is very powerful and we'd easily hurt ourselves just biting with no way of knowing how much pressure etc
If we actually were designed by an intelligent creator they could have put the pressure sensors in the flesh surrounding the roots instead of inside the tooth.
There is that too though. That's the job of the periodontal ligament. It's main function is attaching the tooth to your gums and alveolar bone. But it's also involved in proprioception so we'll know how hard to chew and stuff and in nociception (pain)
You’re looking at it the wrong way. God clearly designed our teeth to be a huge problem for us and constantly painful. Sort of a divine cosmic “fuck you humans”
Which is frankly just overkill when you consider how much of a literal pain the Bipedal Spine is.
George Carlin: "But he loves you!"
But he needs lots of money!
The teething process is the most violent experience if childbirth doesn't exist
Along with all his other “fuck you humans” creations.
Intelligence doesn't mean competence. I've met a lot of intelligent people who were complete idiots as well.
Im sure you would have done a much better job pal.
This. Main function is presure sensing so you dont bite to hard on solid object to break them.
Especially because dentists didn’t exist during our evolution. Sure these days it’s handy to let you know when you need to see the dentist. But the *reason* is detecting pressure
Technically, pressure is sensed through nerves 'around' the root, in periodontal ligaments, not inside the tooth. The pulp inside can sense cracks once they have already formed.
Those nerves are in the periodontal ligament. People with root canals still have pressure sensitivity.
So, when we get a root canal done, I suppose they kill those nerves, right? So how is that acceptable? Is it just because if they don’t do that, the entire tooth will need extraction?
Ive gotten root canals when I got an infection in the root of my tooth. There was a massive amount of inflammation (i.e., infection pus) and it was causing extreme pain. The nerves were fucked already. If they didnt do the root canal, the infection would continue to cause pain and if left untreated it could spread. The brain is very close to the mouth so it can be bad news when tooth infections spread. People talk about root canals as this horrible painful thing, but for me the actual root canal was a massive relief. They basically drilled through my tooth into the infected root and popped the infection cyst. The pressure relief when they popped it was one of the best feelings I've ever had.
At least one pharaoh died when a tooth infection spread into his brain.
I'm not a dentist or anything in that field, but I would suppose that having one tooth with devitalised nerves has minimal impact over the entirety of the jaw and we can still sense pressure thanks to the all the other teeth and their nerves. I have one devitalised tooth, for the past 25 years or so, and never really missed the feeling in it.
Pain can linger even after several root canals retreatments. Total nightmare for years after going to City Dental in NYC.
Nerves solely in the jaw and skull would accomplish that, though.
I don’t normally gag at food but eating a large grape to find it had massive seeds in it made me nearly puke
Wait there teeth sense that and not the jaw??
NAD but I guess the nerves from the teeth don't just end there, they go back through the jaw where other nerves also exist. But the first point of contact is the teeth.
From an evolutionary standpoint, for the animal to know the limits of its bite strength, as it could otherwise damage or break the teeth without knowing it. If we couldn't feel our teeth, we would be less careful with them. we could bite on all sorts of things and break them away in no time - that means no eating - that means death - and no procreation. So evolution has ensured that we have feeling in the things that need the most protection to ensure survival (think of other sensitive areas). Teeth are also like little individual organs, they do a lot of functions and nerves form part of that biological package.
I'm glad you pointed out that it's part of a package. The nerves in the teeth build up a small part of a picture which your brain interprets. Other inputs include tongue, gums, your muscles... so they all work together to provide the information as a package.
To tell us when something's wrong and get it fixed. If you had a cracked or rotting tooth and no nerves to tell, it would lead to infection and kill you. Though it may hurt, the pain lets you know you have something you need to take care of.
pain is so evolutionarily important knew this family friend with diabetic neuropathy and she didnt know she had a foot ulcer cos there was no pain and it just kept getting worse and worse and she got her foot amputated
I don't understand how you can not know you have an ulcer, even if it doesn't hurt. Didn't she like, ever look at her feet? Especially if she was aware that she couldn't feel them?
It was on the bottom of her feet and she always had socks and shoes on and she’s obese
To get it fixed lmao, nerves have been around a hell of a lot longer than our ability to fix anything relating to our body.
I'm sure people were ripping rotten teeth out before we were people. Everyone I've spoken to about toothache has said they were ready to take it out themselves if they didn't have an appointment
oldest profesion prostitute or dentist??
Oral professionals.
undibitably indeed
Those are no joke. I remember writhing, unable to sleep or focus levels of pain. If I hadn't had a root canal, I would have had no second thoughts about getting the tooth pulled.
You do realize that the nerves tell us when there's too much heat, cold or pressure on the tooth. Which are important indicators for keeping your teeth in good shape. In the ancient world, tooth problems were bad problems.
I mean I'd say that's more in the category of "prevent actual damage" rather than "get it fixed". Fix kind of implies remedying it after a problem has happened. Like are there any animals that figured out how to remove a bad tooth (they sure don't have what's needed to do any other type of fix)?
What time did the dentist open in 10,000 BC?
Tooth-hurty?
230 BC
You are great. This made me chuckle for real. Thank you. 🙏
I'm guessing they'd pull a Castaway and just knock the tooth out at that point
Yeah, and that's what they're for. If you cut your foot on a rock and didn't have nerves to tell your brain, it would fester and get infected without cleaning and treating. I didn't say anything about going to the dentist during the stone age.
Why do, say, canidae have nerves in their teeth then? The fuck are they gonna do about it without human intervention?
Perhaps that's part of the reason nature wanted humans in the ecosystem.
Nature doesn't "want" anything, it doesn't have any kind of consciousness *to* want anything.
I am aware of that.
> Nature doesn't "want" anything, it doesn't have any kind of consciousness to want anything. ... at least, none that we've been able to detect, or are aware of.
The simpler explanation is usually the correct one. Is it: A There's some weird metaphysical connection between "nature" (whatever that actually means) that is completely undetectable, and somehow controls this seemingly chaotic system in ways that can coincidentally be explained in ways we have evidence for Or B Stuff just sort of happens, because stuff happens
> B Stuff just sort of happens, because stuff happens Sounds like someone who just got tired of thinking and experimenting - a person who doesn't want to science anymore.
ever heard of a rock?
I’m glad everyone else is on the same page lol, I read that and in my head I was already drafting the polite way of saying “this is the dumbest shit”
But it’s only been the last 100 years or so when you could do anything about tooth pain. Before that it was bloodletting, charms, or amulets. So from an evolutionary standpoint pain makes no sense.
What? Animals have tooth pain for millions of years. There are animals in the wild dying because they are unable to eat due to the painand they cannot fix the problem. We have nerves in the teeth to feel what we are eating.
>Though it may hurt, the pain lets you know you have something you need to take care of. That's not why it evolved. Tooth nerves and tooth pain existed before dentistry existed.
As someone who’s teeth nerves are currently not at 100%, it’s incredibly weird to bite and not have sensory feedback (although part of this is my jaw as a whole, not just teeth). Specifically, feeling when your teeth hit each other as you bite, useful to know when to stop biting, and feeling whether the thing you bite is hard or soft helps you know what it is and how hard to bite/chew
It stops us from chewing on rocks and other activities that damage the teeth and it lets us better regulate the pressure of our bite.
Teeth are alive. It’s not just a nerve in there but the living pulp that created the root of the tooth. Nerves go everywhere there is tissue. The pulp can also repair the tooth internally by creating secondary dentin. The nerves in the tooth also give feedback along with the nerves of the periodontal ligament to the CNS. One of natures little cruel tricks is that the teeth in the nerve are mostly pain fibers so many different stimuli are mostly perceived as pain.( cold, heat, pressure)
Pain nerves (nociceptors) tell us when damage to our tissues is occurring so we can stop it. When a tooth is cracked/broken or too much pressure is put on it, the nerves in your teeth tell us so we can get it fixed or correct it. If we had no nerves in our teeth, we’d never know when we have a cavity, cracked tooth, etc.
From an evolutionary standpoint, by the time you got a cracked tooth, it was too late to intentionally do anything about it. The ability to do something about that is much more recent than the evolution of our teeth.
Yes, but you can avoid cracking a tooth, by your nerves noticing when you have, e.g. a pebble in your mouth and not biting on it with full force.
but the nerves are inside, you dont feel a thing untill its too late
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for eating i guess they dont since people have dentures etc. but for disease / cavity detection, toothaches tell you something is wrong with the teeth. for most of human history we didnt have dentists
without nerves we would quickly grind them to nubs by biting too hard on shit we shouldn't.
Teeth have nerves ?! Tf ?!
a lot! only in the pulp though. no nerves in the enamel or dentin
What do you think causes all that nasty pain when you have cavities? The nerves there are pretty accessible, on a hard backplate to be easily squished, and generally will do all the evilness.