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Chipped Tooth: How Does This Happen?

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More Videos from Dr. Erik Svans 12 videos in this series

Dr. Svans describes how teeth are commonly damaged or chipped.

Dr. Svans:
I have been a dentist for 12 years now and I have seen a lot of different things walking through the door.

I have seen people come in with front teeth broken off half way across, little chips along the edges, teeth in the back broken in half.

So I kind of wanted to give you some input as far as what I see causing those problems because you may not be aware of those things.

Number one, your teeth are for eating. They are not for opening little packets; they are not for chewing on pens, they are not for holding pens in between your teeth.

I have seen older ladies, and I say older because I associate sewing with older ladies, but they literally have notches on their front teeth on where they have held their pins.

As they have been doing their work they’ll put a pin in and do this and that and they not only have chips or even portions of their teeth missing from that over years.

With, when it comes to opening packets, if somebody has had dental work done in the front area where they have a filling or there’s even a weak edge where they have worn the tooth down a little bit and you go ahead and you bite down on something just with your front teeth and try to open that packet you are putting a lot of stress right there on that edge.

And many times, I would say probably 50 percent of the times that somebody breaks the front tooth it’s probably doing something along those lines that they shouldn’t be doing with their front teeth, whether it’s a biting on something, biting on their nails, opening a packet.

It’s those things that end up chipping the front teeth and people usually come in a little bit embarrassed to tell us but nonetheless they’ll tell us how they did it.

Of course, should not going to be opening beer bottles or anything like that but it’s those non-food products that really start to cause problems with the front teeth. So keep those things away from your teeth.

From there, we can talk about some things in the back area that tend to make teeth crack, make things problematic for those back teeth whether you chip a portion off or not.

A lot of people will pull fillings out with really sticky candies, notorious are Jolly Ranchers, Jujubes – things along those lines, caramels, those are notorious for pulling crowns off.

We’ll see that all the time and those things are very good and believe me I love my toffee and I love my sweets, but when it comes to dental work in the back of your mouth, the caramels and things like that are going to pull old fillings out.

They are going to make you need to fix things on emergency basis rather than when they really need to be fixed.

About Dr. Svans:
Dr. Erik Svans, D.D.S., is a 1997 graduate of the University of the Pacific Dental School in San Francisco. He is an active member of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD), American Dental Association (ADA), Arizona Dental Association (AZDA), Dental organization for Conscious Sedation (DOCS), World Clinical Laser Institute (WCLI) and a graduate of the Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies (LVI) and affiliated with the International College of Implantologists (ICOI). Dr. Svans specializes in Smile Design and Reconstruction, Dental Implants CEREC, Laser Dentistry, Teeth Whitening, Invisalign, and Dental Technology Advancements.

Visit Dr. Svans at his website

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