Having crooked teeth can make even the most confident person insecure about his or her smile. In fact, a recent study found that 81 percent of American adults are insecure about their smile – and about 28 percent of them won’t even smile in pictures! But poor self-esteem isn’t the only problem caused by crooked teeth. Believe it or not, having a bad bite can contribute to many other ailments you may have never considered.
Gum Disease
When your bite is misaligned, it can often affect how you brush your teeth and what surfaces of the teeth you can reasonably reach with a brush and floss. If your teeth are very misaligned, it can also be easy to miss spots when flossing. This could translate into periodontal disease, which causes inflammation of the gums and could even cause tooth decay or tooth loss, just to name a few issues.
Bad Breath
If you can’t floss or brush your teeth properly, it follows that more food can get trapped between the teeth, which means that it’s very likely your crooked teeth could be contributing to bad breath. Though bad breath can be masked with gum, mints and mouthwash, the source of that bad breath can only be combated by brushing and flossing – something that may only be possible with orthodontics or full-mouth reconstruction.
Other Diseases
Poor brushing habits can cause periodontal disease, and as if that weren’t bad enough on its own, periodontal disease has been found to contribute to other ailments ranging from diabetes to heart disease to cancer and even stroke.
Headaches
A bad bite can cause headaches for many reasons. First of all, when you have crooked teeth, your bite is off, forcing you to talk and chew in a manner that may cause more harm than good to your jaw. Furthermore, it can cause you to grind your teeth, which puts tension on the jaw, neck and shoulders, triggering headaches.
Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) Disorder
Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder is a serious condition of the jaw that causes pain and stiffness in the temporomandibular joints. People with TMJ disorder often experience head, neck, shoulder and jaw pain, along with headaches, tinnitus (ringing of the ears), bruxism (teeth grinding) and the inability to open and close the mouth. There are many causes of TMJ disorder, but having a crooked or bad bite is one of them. A bad bite can also cause bruxism, which in turn can cause TMJ disorder. And you thought it just made your smile look bad!
Ready to realign your own smile with a full-mouth reconstruction? Give Dr. George’s office a call today at 724-220-2347.
