Enamel

The layer that decides everything, and the one that can’t heal itself.

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Up to One Point, and Then Never

Up to one point yes, past it never. A cavity is reversible until the enamel surface breaks, which is why a dentist saying watch it is not fobbing you off.

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Craze Lines Are Not Cracks

Most lines people notice are craze lines and need nothing. A cracked tooth is a different object, and not every one of them ends in a crown.

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Hydrochloric Acid, Six Hours a Night

Badly, and overnight. Stomach acid is far stronger than anything you drink, and the pattern it leaves is distinctive enough that a dentist can spot the cause.

Editorial illustration: A chipped human molar enamel shard under a microscope, its fractured prisms glittering like shat

Why Enamel Is Different From Every Other Tissue

Bone knits. Skin closes. Liver regrows. Enamel is the one tissue with no living cells in it at all, and that single fact built an entire profession.

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The Hardest Thing Your Body Makes

Tooth enamel will scratch a steel blade and sits about where glass does on the mineral hardness scale. Then a fizzy drink dissolves it.