If tooth decay is caused by a bacteria, why don't dentists prescribe an antibiotic for it?

Listerine can kill the bacteria in your mouth... but you'd have to constantly be swishing with listerine. Antibiotics only help systemic bacteria, and the bacteria in your mouth are topical rather than systemic. Cavities work from the outside of your tooth inward, rather than the other way around.

If tooth decay is caused by a bacteria, why don't dentists prescribe an antibiotic for it?
Because it's not bacteria that is invading INSIDE your body, it's topical bacteria. Antibiotics will do little for that. Plus, if you kill off too much of your beneficial oral bacteria by taking antibiotics, you can develop thrush, or a yeast infection, which is a horrible condition to have. It makes your mucous membranes extremely raw and can actually open you up to a true infection.
Reply:They're probably pissed off that people don't just floss. And think they should suffer the discomfort of having that crap scraped off their teeth and underneath the gums with a sharp pointy object.
Reply:There's probably more to it than this, but you'd have to constantly be taking antibiotics and aside from killing good bacteria, the rate of mutation (and resistance) of the bacteria would be greatly increased. So the initial problem would be unnecessarily be blown up.
Reply:Even if antibiotics could kill all the bacteria in your mouth, once you stop taking the antibiotics, your mouth would soon be invaded by bacteria again. Every person is born with a relatively sterile mouth and all the cavity causing bacteria is transmitted vertically, most commonly parent to child. Another problem, which does happen a lot with people who are on antibiotics too long, is that some of the bacteria in your mouth is beneficial in that it competes with other organisms for resources. Once the bacteria is gone, it'll leave you more vulnerable to fungal infections such as from candida (thrush).





Mouthwashes like listerine do kill many types of disease causing bacteria, but it only works as long as listerine is in your mouth. As soon as you spit it out, it no longer works because it has no staying power. Chlorhexidine is the standard of care by dentists for keeping bacteria levels low if they're going to prescribe a mouthrinse, but the problem is that it will stain your teeth and alter your taste sensation, so it's not usually prescribed for more than 2 weeks at a time.