‘How is your bite?’

IF your teeth are poorly aligned and you think this is not a big deal you are mistaken. We know that for some people, their bite being ‘off’ causes them pain with chewing, pain to the jaw joints, pain in the neck, and chronic headaches.
This happens a lot when you have recently done a few extractions or use a denture with missing teeth. In fact, some estimate that over seventy-five percent of all headaches are muscle-contraction headaches that could be related to a poor bite.
If you think of your head as about a six-pound ball sitting on your spine, balanced by all the muscles in the neck, the face and the head, you realise that when one muscle or several muscles get into a bad place, say for instance, a strained position, it can pull in such a way that all the other muscles are strained.
That muscle straining causes muscle contraction. Remember whenever any muscle pains for whatever cause, it responds by contracting. Those contractions can result in headaches.
We often find that people whose bite is off will accommodate by changing their neck posture. As soon as their neck posture changes, they start to have neck pain. This frequently happens to computer users who sit in front a monitor all day long. Additionally, when you affect the spine,the effect ripples from the top to the bottom of the spine. Not only that, bite misalignment, which is also called malocclusion, can cause you to break or crack teeth, or cause dental work to wear prematurely, excessively or even fail. So, the bite being off can be a very big deal.
We know that a bad bite causes a lot of stress to the entire chewing mechanism, and this stress does not relieve itself easily. It takes time and a lot of relaxation. Some people whose bite is off and who have accommodated it for years and years suddenly no longer have the “body energy” necessary to maintain themselves in spite of that bad bite.
Because of their other stresses in life, they find things start to go downhill. They would say, “This is the way God made me, so it must be okay.” Well, it is not okay.
Man is the only mammal that can live without its teeth. All other mammals die without their teeth. Do you think the loss of your teeth is innocuous? Think again. Just because your parents lost their teeth does not mean you will, too.
Are some dental problems hereditary? Yes. How often is the hereditary the reason that you have a dental problem? Very, very seldom. Only in a very small percentage of cases is hereditary the reason that a patient loses his or her teeth. Just because Mom and Dad lost their teeth due to gum disease does not mean that you will. It is more likely they did not care for their teeth, or did not know how to.
Some persons believe that it is normal for their gums to bleed when they brush their teeth or bite into a fruit. Tell me, when you brush your hair do you expect your scalp to bleed? I think not.
Bleeding gums are the first sign of inflammation. By the way, inflammation is today considered a prime menace to overall health. So no, bleeding gums are not normal but the first stage of gum disease which is called gingivitis.
And gingivitis can make you lose your natural bite since you could eventually wear artificial teeth which has a biting force of just fifteen percent. I have seen TV and newspaper commercials that say certain mouth rinses get rid of bacteria and prevent gingivitis.
Well, that is total nonsense. Only the physical removal of dental plaque can do so. Think of mouth rinses as perfumes. They obviously serve a purpose but are their use essential? The same way a regular bath is vital in keeping the body clean, regular and effective plaque removal keeps the teeth and gums healthy.