Natural Sensitive Toothpaste Offers Innovative Protection
By Maureen Wise in Natural Products
If you have sensitive teeth like me, you may know the pain of biting into cold fruit, or sipping a hot coffee. But do you know what is causing that discomfort? Receding gums expose microscopic pathways to the nerves in your teeth—known as tubules—that cause these painful sensations. For relief, many of us turn to sensitive toothpaste. Now there’s a product available that can manage these painful sensations in a different way.
When Your Teeth Become Sensitive
“Many times teeth sensitivity is due to gum recession,” says Lindsay McPherson, senior brand manager of oral care at Tom’s of Maine. “Gum recession can be caused by age, genetics, hormonal changes, or just plain being too aggressive with tooth brushing.”
Most sensitive toothpastes use potassium nitrate as the active ingredient. Although potassium nitrate does a great job of numbing sensitive teeth nerves to make eating more comfortable, it doesn’t address the source of the problem.
Tom’s of Maine offers a natural sensitive toothpaste for you and your sensitive teeth: Rapid Relief Sensitive Toothpaste. This fluoride-free toothpaste has a patented blend of arginine and calcium carbonate that can seal those open tubules in your teeth, helping to reduce your pain.
What Makes this Natural Sensitive Toothpaste Different?
Rapid Relief toothpaste combines arginine and calcium carbonate for a different sensitivity treatment. Arginine is an essential amino acid, a building block of protein found naturally in living organisms. Tom’s sources its arginine from sugar cane and then treats it with carbon dioxide to form the final product of arginine bicarbonate to use as an ingredient in the toothpaste.
“Arginine acts like double-sided tape between dentin tubules and calcium, which is what teeth are made of,” says Diana Henao, a research scientist with Tom’s of Maine. “The arginine and calcium carbonate in Rapid Relief Sensitive Toothpaste fill in and seal the pathways to your tooth’s nerve to help keep the irritation from happening in the first place. This mimics a natural action, as you already have both materials in your body! The natural ingredients potentially help fix the problem.”
Rapid Relief Toothpaste can also be used as an on-contact sensitivity reducer. If you’ve ever used a sensitivity gel, you may be familiar with the mechanics of this method. The potassium nitrate found in other sensitivity toothpastes can be slow acting, but Rapid Relief Sensitive Toothpaste allows you to experience relief in 60 seconds, when directly applied to the sensitive tooth with your fingertip and gently massaged for one minute.
The views and opinions expressed in any guest post featured on our site are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of Tom’s of Maine.
Why It’s Good
Sensitive teeth are an annoyance that many people deal with. But just because it's a complicated oral health issue doesn't mean your treatment has to have complicated ingredients. Using natural sensitive toothpaste can help you manage your sensitivity while still giving your family a product that doesn't include artificial flavors or preservatives.