THE undercurrent of Covid crankiness permeating society has left people noticeably more on edge and the stresses are being played out with people gritting their teeth like the most hardened professional weightlifters.
Our teeth are buckling under these intense forces, and teeth literally cracking into small pieces.
Cracked tooth syndrome definitely comes under the unfun umbrella. Cracks in teeth can be so small that they aren't visible to the naked eye or on X-rays, but they are extremely troublesome to the afflicted person.
Every crunch on a cracked tooth can elicit a sharp, radiating pain but as its difficult to determine where the pain is coming from, treatment can be tricky.
Back teeth with large fillings are the ones that most often fall prey to overloading forces. The best outcome is if just a small piece of cusp breaks off, as this can be remedied with a straightforward filling. Even if a large piece of tooth breaks below the gum line, it is normal that the tooth can be saved by adjusting the gum and then rebuilding the tooth.
Even a perfect tooth, one that has never even had the smallest of fillings, can alarmingly split in two. This is normally due to a career clencher or grinder, working and working at their teeth all day and throughout the night.
The tooth is flexed backwards and forwards so often that tiny crack lines appear in the enamel.
These then propagate with the continued forces and the lines open up much like a cracked windscreen breaking. This can have catastrophic consequences with the tooth root agonisingly splitting apart and requiring it to be removed.
If a split tooth is left in the jawbone, an abscess will quickly develop and eat away the surrounding bone faster than you can say Grand Canyon. So rapid removal of the tooth actually saves the most bone and allows easier placement of a replacement tooth at a later date.
Try not to fret if you can see a craze line in your teeth, most people have them (me included), from chewing hard foods or from the odd knock here and there. These can remain like this throughout your entire life and never give any bother.
