Heat, cold, or sweets can stimulate the dental nerve over its threshold, causing transient pain. Teeth provide a primary measure of irritability. Sensitive teeth connote enhanced responsiveness at all levels: psychologically, immunologically, neurologically and glandularly.

If the pain is more profound and prolonged after the stimulus, inflammation is present. Super-sensitive teeth and gums demonstrate diminished inflammatory control.

Teeth with significant disease or structural damage are often painless. When teeth are extra responsive, they reflect a stressed body chemistry expressed in every organ system of the body. Allow the sensitive tooth to make you aware of the irritable and inflammatory feelings flitting across your consciousness.

The teeth are a barometer of one's resilience. Typically sensitivity comes and goes. Sensitive teeth reflect tidal shortages of minerals. Shortages of the major minerals: potassium, calcium, and magnesium reduce the stabilizing electrical charge of the cell. The more easily triggered cell translates into an important survival mechanism, enhanced edginess and alertness. Imperturbability is lost and chronic stresses become magnified. The number one expert on stress, Hans Selye, said, "It's not the amount of stress. It's how you respond to it that counts."

Shortages of the trace minerals, zinc, copper, manganese, or selenium, compromise thyroid function and important anti-inflammatory controls. When these critical trace minerals are in short supply, sensitive teeth can quickly decay. Tooth decay is auto-immune inflammatory destruction of one's bones. Arthritis, acne, increased response to pain and inflammatory behavior often accompany tooth decay.

The loss of minerals due to high protein diet, high sugar diet, diarrhea, excessive sweating, or diuretics such as alcohol or coffee, commonly causes sensitivity. A low-dose multi-mineral tablet, two to three times per day, is often an easier remedy than the recommended daily nibbling of four cups of mineral-rich deep-green vegetables.

The depression, irritability and fatigue of illness result from inflammatory oxidative overload. Uncontrolled inflammation creates a systemic alkaline overload expressed as exquisitely sensitive teeth. Large doses of ascorbic acid can balance the alkalosis and, along with other anti oxidants, quench the underlying oxidative chemistry.