The Toothache That Changed My Life

Having a nice looking smile isn't all about having straight teeth and no stains. It can be surprising and upsetting to notice that one of your teeth is distinctly shorter than the others. Unfortunately, this is a problem that many people experience through lives, but also one that can develop for different reasons. Read this simple guide to find out if you're doing one of the things that could potentially shorten one or more of your teeth.

Nail Biting

One of the worst things that you can do for your teeth is to bite your nails. It pushes your teeth out of alignment and can introduce nasty, dangerous bacteria into your mouth, but that's not all.

When you bite your nails, you put a lot of force onto the teeth responsible for breaking through the nail. And since most people don't evenly cycle across all of their teeth when biting their nails, chances are one to a few of your teeth are shorter than others as a result of nail biting.

Tooth Grinding

Grinding your teeth is less likely to cause individual teeth to become noticeably shortened in comparison to their counterparts, but it's not out of the question.

If you grind your teeth and don't have straight teeth, it can lead to pressure being put on one or more teeth all by themselves. This is because teeth are designed to distribute pressure evenly, but when you have crooked teeth, some may stand up higher than others. Those are the teeth that take the pressure first and ultimately take the most of it, too. If you can bite down and feel that some of your teeth make contact with each other while others don't, this is likely your problem.

Food Habits

Finally, what you eat and how you eat it can play a big role in this problem, too. Eating food that's extremely hard or crunchy on a regular basis can potentially wear down your teeth. However, like tooth grinding, most people wear down their teeth evenly from chewing across all tooth surfaces.

You're more likely to experience one or more shortened teeth from this habit if you eat things like nuts. Biting through the shell of nuts repeatedly to eat them can put more wear on the tooth or teeth responsible for breaking through that shell. In the end, your shell-breaker might end up seriously damaged, so it's best to stop doing that and to instead use a nutcracker to take the hardest part of it off your teeth.

If you're tired of having a noticeably shorter tooth that stands out, you should know that you can get help from a cosmetic dentist. Cosmetic dentists are experts at repairing and disguising minor damage to teeth like this. If you don't have a crack or a break, talk to a cosmetic dentistry clinic about getting veneers to help cover the tooth and to make it look white, shiny, and symmetrical again.