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How many teeth are in the adult's mouth? Why are they of a different color than in children? Are cavities visible with the naked eye? Can inflammation of the gums be detected with a simple self-examination?

There are many questions that we can ask ourselves about a cavity as small as the mouth. Depending on the age of the individual, the number of teeth that we are going to find will be different as well as the type of tooth.

In a 3-year-old child, we will find dental arches made up of 10 primary or milk teeth each. In both the upper and lower arches we will have 4 incisors, 2 canines, 2 first molars and 2 second molars. Therefore, a total of 20 teeth.

In a child of 10 years we will find the coexistence of temporary and permanent teeth at the same time. Not all the storms have fallen yet but not all the definitive ones have come out. How do we differentiate the temporary ones from the definitive ones? The temporary or milk are usually whiter, smaller and flattened in shape.

In a 20-year-old adult, we will most likely find all the definitive teeth in the mouth, for a total of 32. We would appreciate 4 incisors, 2 canines, 4 premolars and 6 molars in each arch. It should be said that the absence of eruption of wisdom teeth (wisdom teeth) is very frequent in a large part of the population, it may be due to agenesis (they have not formed) or to an arrest in the eruptive process (they are not visible in the mouth but would show up on an X-ray, for example).

What happens when the upper arch contacts the lower arch? In conditions of normal occlusion, the upper arch embraces the lower arch, so that in front of a mirror we will observe when separating the lips, the entire structure of the upper teeth but only a part of the lower teeth, since approximately half of their length is hidden under the upper arch. It is very common to find irregularities in this aspect since there are many and very frequent causes that alter normal occlusion, for example crowding of the anterior teeth of the lower arch. Most malocclusions are due to orthodontic treatment.