Black Teeth and Brown Teeth: Causes and Treatment

Tooth decay is the first suspect. A cavity can look brown or black, often in a groove, between teeth or near the gum, and it keeps growing without treatment. Pain or food packing is a further clue.

Tartar stained by tea, tobacco or paan can also look black along the gum line, and that is removable. A tooth that has died after an injury turns grey, brown or black over time, sometimes without pain. Old silver fillings and some medicines can darken teeth as well.

For small dark pits and specks, see black spots on teeth. This page covers wider darkening of the tooth.

Brown teeth are most often surface stain from chai, coffee, smoking and chewing tobacco, or from tartar. Heavy stain from betel nut and gutka is covered in betel nut teeth. Brown mottling on all the teeth from childhood can be dental fluorosis.

Brown at the edges of a filling or in a crack can be decay, so it should be checked rather than assumed to be stain.

A dentist examines the tooth, tests it, and usually takes an X-ray to see decay and the nerve. Surface stain and tartar are removed by scaling and polishing, as in what scaling involves. Decay is treated with a filling, or a root canal and crown if it has reached the nerve.

A dead dark tooth often needs root canal treatment, and then the shade can be improved by internal whitening or a crown. Cosmetic options are laid out on the smile design page, the yellow teeth page and in why teeth stain.

If a dark tooth comes with swelling of the face, fever, or difficulty swallowing or breathing, get care the same day, and go to a hospital emergency department if breathing or swallowing is affected.