Letโs talk about craze lines on your teeth and what to do about them.
What are craze lines?
Craze lines are tiny hair-thin lines on teeth that run vertically up and down across the surface. Most of the craziness and teeth are only visible up close like you really have to be looking super carefully to see them. They can look like little cracks or white lines on teeth or even have a gray, blue, or brown shade to them. Especially if you start to accumulate stains, they will definitely be more noticeable. Light can also play a factor in how visible they are.
If you’re noticing these on your teeth right now, don’t freak out.
They are completely common especially as you get older. Some people only have one or two craze lines while others have multiple white lines on their teeth throughout their mouth. The ones on your front teeth tend to be the most noticeable because you see those teeth more easily. The good news is that these fine lines on teeth usually aren’t something to worry about in a structural sense. Craze lines tend to be more of an aesthetic superficial issue.
Unlike large cracks in teeth, craze lines aren’t a major cause for alarm. However, it is worth mentioning that you still want to monitor them overtime to make sure these superficial lines don’t evolve into deeper fractures. So the big question is, can they turn into cracked teeth in the future? The potential is there, but oftentimes they won’t. There is always a risk these lines could get worse but you usually will know by your daily habits whether or not it’s a risk for you.
For example, you could compare it to an old piece of china. Even though your dish is still intact, you might see multiple tiny little cracks across the surface in certain areas. That doesn’t mean you can’t use it or that it’s going to break if you’re handling it properly. But it does indicate that the porcelain is getting older and starting to show signs of its age. The same thing when it comes to your tooth enamel and craze lines on your teeth are more superficial than they are structural.
But if you were to continue bad habits such as chewing on pens or chewing on your fingernails, you could be exerting too much stress on them causing those weak areas to break again. This is only possible if you’re applying too much atypical force on your teeth.
So to prevent these craze lines from getting worse, here are five things you can do:
- One, stop biting your nails.
- Two, stop chewing on foreign objects like pens, pencils, hairpins, etc.
- Three, stop clenching and grinding your teeth at night, and if you can’t stop make sure you’re wearing a night guard when you sleep.
- Four, stop using your front teeth to chew or bite on hard foods, nuts seeds, etc. chewing and biting should be done on your back teeth, your molars, not your front teeth.
- Five, stop opening packages with your teeth.
Most of the craze lines on teeth are caused by the main two things, bad habits and age. Since we can’t stop aging, we can stop bad habits.
In all, unfortunately, once you have surface lines on your teeth, they’re not going anywhere. Cracks only have two physical options, they can stay the way they are or they can spread even more. If you have craze lines let’s focus on keeping them stable so they don’t spread. And if you are worried about the current appearance of the lines on your teeth when you smile, you can talk to your dentist about covering them with either dental veneers or dental bonding.
But truly you don’t have to do anything about them. Those tiny little cracks are generally only a cosmetic issue for you. If they don’t bother you great, let’s keep it that way by minimizing strain on those teeth, by not doing those bad habits
I hope this helped you.
