Sometimes tooth wear appears in odd manners. Maybe it doesn’t occur throughout the entire mouth. Maybe some teeth are worn more than others. Maybe there is both erosion and attrition.
- Erosion can take place in only certain areas of the mouth, particularly the left versus the right side.
- Putting aspirin on your gum to help with tooth pain is not a good idea (for several reasons). In terms of the tooth problem, it can cause demineralization of the tooth, and then brushing can cause significant wear to the tooth.
- Placing candy in your mouth for an extended period of time can have a similar effect.
- Trauma can be mistaken for wear patterns. Trauma can produce wear that the teeth don’t occlude on at all. So it appears they have wear facets, but the teeth can’t actually touch to cause attrition.
- Attrition (on natural teeth), will always cause wear on both arches.
- Wear can occur over years and be a combination of a variety of factors. A person could have had trauma early on in life, acid erosion from pop drinking when they were a teenager, and then grinding when they are an adult.
- One of the most interesting examples was a person who chewed cigars for years and years. He wore his teeth down so much that the majority of them didn’t even touch. The occurred because the cigars were both acidic and abrasive.
