What If I Just Live With What I Have?

Many people do!

Some will because they don’t know that what is going on in their mouth is pathologic.  Other people don’t know what to do about it.  They ask their dentist and get told not to worry, their wear and fractured teeth are a part of aging.  TIME TO FIND A NEW DENTIST!

To live in a chronic state of bruxism without any treatment is a downward spiral:

• The teeth will continue to wear.  Once sufficient tooth structure is missing on the front teeth, the back teeth will become flatter.
• Crowns, fillings and teeth will fracture and break with prolonged bruxism.
• The gums will be more challenging to keep healthy as bruxer’s gums are hypersensitive to normal levels of plaque.  Inflamed gums will lead to bone inflammation and loss.  This leaves less support to hold the teeth in the mouth.
• Tooth looseness will increase both as number of teeth affected as well as the severity of the looseness of each tooth.
• Muscle and joint awareness may increase to pain.  If they are already painful, a chronic period may lead to depression and despair.  Insomnia could result.
• Headaches may become more frequent, last longer or be more intense.
• The once short teeth will become even shorter, leading to collapse of the bite (Your nose and chin will come closer together as there is less tooth height between them).  Facial wrinkles will occur around the mouth.
•  As teeth wear and the enamel fractures off, the substructure under the enamel, the dentin, is exposed.  Dentin wears seven times faster than enamel, so the teeth will become even shorter at a faster rate.
•  Added to this is the erosion of the dentin that will occur from the acid in the saliva.  As the dentin erodes, the enamel will fracture away.

The downward spiral continues!

As you can see, the smile teeth that are short or have fractured off edges or are worn even with each other all the way across the smile are that way because of bruxism. While not necessarily a quick fix, grinding and clenching can be controlled by a well trained dentist.  The resulting damaged teeth can then be restored to give back a beautiful, healthy and functioning smile and bite.

Yours for better dental health,

Charles Briscoe, DDS