A client came to Time Dental experiencing tooth ache after having eating a hard boiled sweet. The tooth had initally broken and as she was in Turkey at the time a dentist repaired the tooth. Since then the tooth had been very tender to bite on and she could not even brush the tooth as it was so sensitive.
On assessing the tooh, the white composite filling that the dentist inTurkey had placed was actually sound and in good shape, however she was experiencing a great deal of pain when she used the tooth when chewing. The x-ray showed that the filling was deep and close to the nerve, however no other obvious signs of pathology was present. She had a very strong bite and her teeth had been worn excessively. She reported that she ate alot of pickled gherkins daily.
Pickled food are very acidic. If this is a regular part of your diet then you are essentially sloshing acid on your teeth every day and this will cause them to wear and erode. Combined with the fact that she was grinding her teeth resulted in excessive wear of all her teeth.
Hard crunchy foods can crack your teeth. Foods such as boiled sweets, granary seeded bread, hard crusty bread, hard nuts, crunchy museli, grenola. If you like these types of foods you are at a high risk of breaking your teeth- fact. The best thing to do is avoid these types of crucnhy food entirely. Softer options are readily available.
To help this patient the inital steps were to ease her bite so that she was not placing excess force on her problem tooth and to use a special tooth balm to alleviate sensitivity to cold drinks and food. Cracks in teeth are often difficult to diagnose. She may still have had a microscopic fracture in the tooth that was not visible and if this propagates ie extends further through the tooth, it may well involve the nerve and the only option for the tooth is root canal therapy. If the crack were to extend beyond the floor of the tooth, the only option is extraction. Our first step was to see if the bite adjustment would resolve the issue a dn reduce the trauma to the tooth. The plan was then to review her in the near future to see if the symptoms had settled.
Bruxism describes a range of related behaviours including teeth grinding, gnashing and clenching of the jaw. Its usually a subconscious behavior performed whilst asleep.
