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How Do Bad Oral Habits and Poor Choice of Diet Affect Your teeth?
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You’re mistaken if you think bad oral habits and diet choices cannot affect your teeth. Smoking, aggressive brushing, using teeth as a bottle opener or scissors, eating sticky-sugary food, drinking high sugar content or acidic beverages, thumb sucking, and nail biting can affect your teeth’ appearance and oral health in general. Although your teeth are stronger than bones, repeated bad oral habits can impact the appearance of your teeth and their strength. If you and someone you know have such bad habits, it is time to take control of your habits.
Type of Dental Damage
Bad oral habits can contribute to many dental damages that may lead to other dental diseases and jaw problems. Let’s look at different types of dental wear.
- Attrition – The edge or cusp of the teeth appear flat. Although this is normal, especially on incisors and cuspid, habitual mechanical forces like grinding or biting hard food or non-food objects can shorten teeth.
- Abrasion – your teeth near the gum line appear shiny and wedge-like. Premolar teeth are usually susceptible to abrasion due to their location.
- Abfraction caused by bruxism (grinding and clenching). The pattern is very similar to abrasion. However, the wedge shape is deeper into the dentin and often appears at the neck of your tooth, where the enamel meets cementum.
- Erosion – caused by acid from food, beverages, or digestive enzymes from the stomach. The teeth appear shiny and yellowish.
- Stain – caused by residue or pigment of food or chemical adhered to tooth surfaces. Smoking, particularly, can leave sticky tar that makes your smile yellow or brown.
- Malocclusion – caused by poor oral habits such as thumb sucking, tongue sucking or thrust, lip-cheek sucking, and mouth breathing. These habits can affect the alignment of your teeth and your bite.
How to prevent dental damage
- Avoid biting or chewing directly on hard foods, such as ice-cube, candies, frozen fruits, and Corn kernels.
- Avoid Nail-biting or holding objects with your teeth.
- Remember, teeth are tools for eating and speaking, NOT a bottle opener or scissors.
- Opt for a soft bristle toothbrush and avoid brushing aggressively to prevent tooth and gum damage.
- Avoid directly sucking on lemon or lime, avoid soda or acidic beverages, and treat an eating disorder such as Bulimia.
- treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
- Remind yourself not to clench or grind your teeth. Observe your behaviors, when, what time, and what causes you to develop the habits. If it happens at night, consult a dentist for a night guard. Grinding and clenching teeth overtime can affect your jaw joint and may lead to temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD)
- Get a dental exam regularly. If the bad oral habits continue over time, it can lead to the development of dental diseases.
Take Away
Bad oral habits can affect your dental health, not only dental alignment but also the overall tooth structure. Any patterns that cause tooth structure loss can lead to the development of dental diseases such as dental trauma, tooth crack, increased tooth sensitivity, root caries, and TMD. Being aware of and avoiding bad habits can save your teeth and dental expenses in the long run.
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