A bite is how your bottom teeth and top teeth come together. A healthy bite means that your bottom teeth and your top teeth are aligned together properly. But if your teeth or jaws are misaligned, they can cause a bad bite, better known as malocclusion. Finding people with natural and perfectly aligned teeth are rare. Even so, misaligned bites range from mild to severe. Most people think that malocclusion is a cosmetic problem. Therefore, they don’t see the need to correct it, but misaligned teeth can affect your overall health in several ways, including your teeth, neck, back, and head.

Your bite can impact your teeth’s health, colour, strength, and shape since it’s the part of the body that gets affected the most in malocclusion.

Misaligned Teeth Can Affect Several Aspects of Your Life Such As

Low self-esteem: This is the most obvious effect of malocclusion. Misaligned teeth alter your face profile and your smile. This will affect your self-confidence, thereby limiting your potential in life.

Tooth decay and gum disease: Misaligned teeth make it difficult to clean your teeth. Just because you have permanent teeth doesn’t mean your teeth don’t still grow. The pressure you impact on your teeth during all that chewing makes your teeth move a lot, and if they are already misaligned, then they’ll move even further away from each other or even too close that they even start to overlap. Teeth with wider gaps give food particles room to hide. They start feeding plague-feeding bacteria in your mouth. The bacteria growth causes tooth decay. On the other hand, overlapping teeth will irritate the gums, making them prone to gum diseases like gingivitis and periodontitis.

Chewing problems: When chewing, your teeth from both sides of the mouth should touch each other evenly. On the contrary, misaligned teeth don’t do that. This causes discomfort during chewing, and sometimes it may cause pain if it isn’t taken care of in time.

Tooth/gum wear and tear: If a malocclusion is not corrected in time, your body may start to compensate for the misaligned teeth through grinding and clenching. This causes your teeth to become loose, worn out, or broken and your gums to wear. When your gums wear out, it may cause gum recession which might prove difficult and expensive to fix.

Jaw-joint pain: Misaligned teeth can strain your temporomandibular joint (TMJ). You may notice this through severe jaw pain, a cracking sound when moving your jaw, frequent headaches, or uneven pressure being applied to your teeth.

Tooth pain: In cases where the misalignment is severe, it may cause tooth pain. Please make sure you consult with your dentist in case of a toothache to determine what is causing it.

Speech difficulties: Teeth play an important role in speech production. For that reason, their placement may affect your speech. Severe Misaligned teeth can cause speech difficulties.

Pain to the entire body: Every part of your body is associated with one another; therefore, jaw structure ultimately affects your bite, spine, airway, muscles, and nerves. As a result, severely misaligned teeth will affect those body parts. You may experience headaches, backaches, neck pains, shoulder pains, and soreness.

To Know If You Have a Bad Bite, Check For the Following

• Gaps between your teeth

• Overlapped or crowding of your teeth

• Either the upper teeth or the lower teeth protruding more than the other

• If one or more upper teeth don’t line up with the right lower teeth

As discussed earlier, misaligned bites can either be mild or severe. Mild malocclusion will not always require treatment, but you will require treatment to avoid health issues in severe cases. The first step you need to do is to visit a qualified orthodontist for a thorough examination. There are many kinds of treatment for misaligned teeth. They include braces, veneers, enamel shaping, crowns, surgery, and plates. We all know that it’s better to prevent than to treat. Even so, the prevention of malocclusion isn’t that easy because most of it is hereditary. Therefore, the best way to deal with it is to seek treatment as early as possible.

Finding the services of a qualified cosmetic dentist can be challenging. Dr. Kelley Fisher is the renowned Cosmetic Dentist in Sammamish and the greater Seattle area, with over 20 years of working experience in this field. With her expertise, she is sure to give you back your healthy bite and that wonderful smile you’ve been longing for. Dr. Fisher is trained in dentistry specializing in smile restoration and advanced occlusion. Contact us today and get a chance to restore your teeth’ beauty, functionality, and health.