Hi I’m Dr. Gregory Apsey at 11270 13 Mile located between Hoover and Van Dyke in Warren, Michigan. You can reach me on the web at www.drapseydds.com.
I’d like to talk to you about a common dental problem that many of my dental patients are faced with through the years. It is cracked tooth syndrome. It’s often seen in dental patients who either have just bitten on something very hard, inadvertently they fracture their tooth, or they on a regular basis are clenching their teeth. Clenching of the teeth is a biting together and a squeezing, and it’s often happening during the day. If you find yourself doing that during the day, its something that you can avoid, prevent, or stop yourself from doing it. But in general, people who are doing it during the day are doing it during the night, and generally at about 10 times the force at night time.
So what can happen over time is a tooth can split. As this process begins, in the beginning there may be a visible fracture on the tooth. I would be able to detect that in my chair in a routine dental examination. But you may also find it on your own. That all of sudden you are not able to chew on this side of your mouth, something is bothering you-something is hurting and you would really rather stay off of it. Meaning every time you chew, or every time you let off pressure you’re feeling pain. This is a very good reason to get in to see the dentist because if the tooth is fractured there’s a potential that the fracture will continue. Usually that once it started it will continue working its way down into the structure of the tooth. If it goes too deeply it can get into the nerve of the tooth, causing a need for root canal and crown if it’s even beyond that the tooth can sometimes be lost due to the fracture right down the root.
There is a pretty simple diagnosis that’s done in the dental office. Usually there is an x-ray taken. And I’ll do a test with a bite stick — we call it the tooth sleuth. This tooth sleuth helps us to diagnose where the tooth fracture is or if indeed there is a fracture. And then we can talk about whether the tooth can be saved or not. It really depends on how advanced or how deep the tooth fracture is. So if you find yourself with a toothache when you’re chewing food, don’t put it off. It should be looked at, at least to rule out a fractured tooth. Thank you.