Do I Have a Bad Bite?

Do you have a problem with your bite? Do you have a bad bite? How can you know? There are different ways in which the problems of your bite get your attention. Some bite problems will cause discomfort or even pain, and that pain can masquerade as problems that you may not readily associate with your teeth. Some bite problems don’t cause pain or discomfort but they still can cause major damage to your teeth. There are some pretty simple ways that anyone can detect when a problem with the bite is causing or at least contributing to pain or discomfort.

The clench test: Without anything in your mouth, close your teeth together and squeeze hard. If this clenching your teeth together causes discomfort in any tooth, you may have a disharmony in your bite. If any one tooth or part of a tooth hits before the rest of the teeth during closure, teeth can become sensitive to cold from that extra pounding that they take. Bite together slowly. Do your teeth come together all at the same time? If not, that one spot that is hitting first can easily cause extra sensitivity. Squeeze hard. If you can make any tooth hurt by clenching, the bite is probably the main reason for the sensitivity. This is a good way to find out if a new filling or crown is “high.” If it hurts when you clench, it is probably not in perfect harmony with a correct bite. You should be able to bite hard and grind your teeth together in all directions without feeling discomfort in any tooth if your bite is perfect. The exception to this is if you have advanced periodontal disease, you may have several teeth that can’t accept firm biting, but even then, you should not normally feel pain in a single tooth when biting. Do you have pain or discomfort in your jaw joint? (usually, you may feel it just in front of your ear) If you do, you can suspect a problem with the relationship between your bite and your temporomandibular joint (TMJ). It may be a structural disorder in your TMJ, but usually, the pain is coming from your jaw closing muscles that move your jaw joints. We, here at Camarillo Smiles, should be able to diagnose the exact source of the pain. Severe wear on your teeth is another sign that your bite is not in harmony with your joints. Look at your teeth, do you see wear on the biting surfaces and edges?  If you have worn all the enamel off the biting edges of your teeth, you may see a darker colored surface. This is dentin and it will wear down seven times faster than the much harder enamel that you have already worn through. We can evaluate what is causing so much wear. This wear can be especially damaging (as well as a cosmetic problem when it is on your front teeth). If you notice your lower front teeth have worn through to dentin, let’s check your bite. Your wear can be made much worse if you have gastric reflux (GERD). Wear happens much much faster. Let’s not wait until all of your the enamel is gone. Let’s stop or at least slow down the wear process.