We love our teeth. They help us eat, they give us a beautiful smile, and they keep our jaw bones healthy and strong. But sometimes we do things to our teeth that are bad for them and can cause irreparable damage. Some of these bad habits can be easy to break, but others take some practice. Here are just a few things you should never ever do with your teeth - and some solutions, too.
When it comes to sleeping, there’s a lot of misinformation about what’s healthy and what’s not. But unfortunately, what you don’t know really can hurt you. Check out these three sleep-related myths and the real science behind them.
You may have seen friends, family or television characters wearing devices on their face that connect to their braces and wondered what on earth they were wearing. Well, chances are it was something called orthodontic headgear, or more commonly referred to as simply headgear.
So, what is headgear, anyway - and why do doctors and dentists prescribe it? Here’s all you ever wanted to know about this beneficial orthodontic device.
Has your temporomandibular joint disorder ever hurt so badly that you just wished you could throw out your old temporomandibular joint and get a whole new one? Well, the good news is that in the future you may be able to do just that. For now, however, that procedure is reserved for very rare cases, such as the recent case of a man in Cyprus who received a new temporomandibular joint following cancer treatment.
You’ve probably heard of - and seen - an overbite before. But a lesser-known bite problem that occurs in only about 10 percent of the population is an underbite. An underbite is what happens when the lower jaw protrudes past the upper jaw. Not only is this type of misaligned bite more noticeable, but it can also unfortunately subject children to bullying and low self-esteem, among many other issues.
Arthritis is a disorder that causes painful inflammation of the joints. An estimated 350 million people worldwide suffer from some form of arthritis, with 40 million of those cases right here in the United States. But despite its frequent occurrence, you may not realize that arthritis can sometimes be responsible for another painful joint condition: temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMD. That’s because TMD is a disorder of the joints too – the temporomandibular joints. Though TMD can be caused by many different things, many people don’t realize that arthritis could be the culprit.