Answering FAQs About Unusual Dental Conditions
What is gingivitis?
Gingivitis is inflammation of your gingiva, the gums, and it does not involve bone socket loss. It's only inflammation of the gums.
What is periodontal disease?
That's different. Periodontitis or periodontal disease is inflammation of your gums and inflammation of your bone sockets. A lot of times, when you have periodontal disease, it will involve loss of the gum line. Your gums will peel up or down, and it'll also involve bone socket level drop. That is a requirement of periodontal disease; it involves your bone sockets. Gingivitis alone only involves the gums but not your bone sockets.
What is sleep apnea?
Sleep apnea is when you stop breathing during your sleep, and there could be several reasons for it. Obstructive sleep apnea would be something like obstructing your airway, such as your tongue or tonsils, or being overweight. Or there's central sleep apnea, which is more like when your brain can't send messages to your head and neck to properly keep the airway spaces open. That would be the second type. Sometimes people can have a mixture of both types of sleep apnea.
What are some unusual conditions that dentists can treat?
One of them is called Hutch Hutchinson's teeth. Let me show you a picture. Hutchinson's teeth look like this. They're kind of like shoved teeth. The cause is basically babies or humans are born congenitally, they come out of the mother's womb, and they have syphilis. They've been exposed to syphilis, and that's a cause of it. It shows up on baby teeth and adult teeth. Let me see if I have another one. Here's another picture I can show you. Here's what it looks like on more adult teeth over here. That's how Hutchinson's teeth look in the front.
What is taurodontism?
Taurodontism is when the nerve of a molar or front tooth is really big. This is what it looks like when it's normal, but when people have taurodontism, it's usually like super large pulps and very short roots. Usually, this is a normal tooth. That's a tooth with taurodontism.
What is a Turner's tooth?
A tooth with an enamel defect and its overlying enamel. They tend to have defective enamel and sometimes dentin. Usually, it's caused when the baby tooth above, as the adult tooth was developing, gets affected because of either an accident or an infection in the baby tooth. This is what Turner's hypoplasia looks like. Turner's hypoplasia. There you go.
What are trench teeth?
Trench teeth are basically teeth that are affected by really infected gums. It was named after the trench soldiers in the world wars. It's going to be a little gross. You can look away if you want, but this is what it looks like.
Trench mouth is acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis. When you don't keep your teeth clean, the bacteria overdevelop and give you a lot of inflammation, affecting your teeth and gums. People wound up with this. Back then, people were starving, and they would rather have a fruit cake instead of a toothbrush and powder to brush their teeth. That's how it stems.
What are butter teeth?
Butter teeth are basically your upper lateral teeth, your upper lateral incisors, but also when your teeth are really stained and have the color of butter. They're really yellow.
Also, the Danish call them butter teeth. It's like when you bite on toast with butter and leave your teeth mark. There may be some connection to that.
What is tooth fremitus?
Tooth fremitus is when your teeth become mobile because of how you're biting on them. If you're clenching or grinding a lot and you're biting hard, they start to get mobile and loose. That is tooth fremitus.
What is perikymata?
They are visible horizontal lines on your teeth. I found this picture on the internet to show you. All of these pictures I found on the internet. If you look closely, you're going to see horizontal, uneven lines. They're horizontal lines. That is perikymata, and they're normal. It's just different anatomy on different teeth. Some people have them more visible than others. Your tooth is fine if you have them.
What are groovy teeth?
Groovy teeth are molars that have grooves. See that? Those are grooves. Sometimes they're hard to clean, and people get cavities in there. Those are groovy teeth.
What is a mulberry tooth?
It's a mulberry molar. It's a molar that has extra cusps.
What is a shovel tooth?
Shovel teeth are instead of having flat undersides, these are the front teeth. Instead of being flat, they're usually more shovel-shaped, like a shovel. It's kind of scooped. This is a shovel-shaped tooth.
Sometimes they're super shoveled and have holes in here, like really deep grooves, like on this tooth. They're super deep and shoveled, and sometimes they have grooves that can get cavities. Bacteria will trap in there and cause cavities, but the underlying part of the front teeth is shovel-shaped, kind of like a shovel.
What are Japanese teeth?
This is really interesting. There's modern Japanese teeth and ancient Japanese teeth. Modern Japanese teeth, apparently, are becoming popular—when the canine teeth are sticking out. I guess a lot of people are paying to have their teeth stick out because in certain cultures, it is considered more desirable to have your teeth stick out like this.
In the olden days, apparently, this custom ended in 1870. It used to be something the wealthier did in Japan. They stained their teeth black and kept them black because it also decreased the chances of getting cavities and gum disease, which I found interesting. These are black teeth, and that was their Japanese teeth. It's no longer practiced much in Japan.
What is dental concrescence?
Dental concrescence is where teeth are fused by the root surface. There's something called cementum, which is like an outer layer before the actual root structure starts. They kind of bind. It's nothing really wrong with them; it's just a different way that people develop. Is it ideal? It's not ideal, but this is concrescence. I like the picture in the video above because it shows how the teeth fuse at the root surfaces.
What is odontodysplasia?
Odontodysplasia is also known as ghost teeth because on x-rays, they kind of look not very solid. They have very little density in terms of the enamel and dentin inside, and they look like this. They're just kind of falling apart. They're not completely stable. These teeth are healthy teeth. These teeth are not. They're kind of broken down. Those are ghost teeth, also called odontodysplasia.
What is a paramolar tooth?
A paramolar tooth is an extra tooth in the molar area. Usually in the molar area. They're usually smaller.
Paramolar teeth, usually in the back teeth. Can you get them in the front teeth? You can. Every case is different, but I've seen some really interesting cases. I didn't want to gross you out, so I just decided not to include that one. That was a really good one, though.
What is microdontia?
Microdontia is just an extra tooth that is small. Micro obviously means small.
What are waterloo teeth?
Waterloo teeth are teeth that were retrieved from dead soldiers who died in the battle of Waterloo, and they were sold to dentists to make dentures out of real teeth for wealthier patients back then. This is a sample of Waterloo teeth from different people's mouths, where a dentist developed a denture made out of real teeth from different people's mouths. We've come a long way.
Why are they called milk teeth?
Baby teeth. Why are they called milk teeth? Because they erupt at the time when an infant is nursing or drinking milk or formula. That's why baby teeth are called milk teeth. Something simple.
What is occlusal drifting?
Occlusal drifting is when your teeth drift or move because of an empty space. Here's an extreme example of someone's teeth drifting. That's why you don't want to have teeth pulled for no reason. Your mouth is full of equilibrium. If you have teeth touching each other, the teeth are more likely to stay in place. If you have teeth missing above or below, they're going to drift up, down, or sideways. It's important to keep your teeth for that reason. You don't want them to shift or drift.
What is abfraction?
An abfraction is a wedge-like crack or break off from the root surface. Here's what I found.
There are different types, but generally speaking, if you're grinding hard and putting a lot of force on your teeth, the neck area of the teeth, which would be equivalent to this right here, starts to receive a lot of unhealthy forces, causing the gum line root surfaces of the teeth to chip or break off
Usually, I've noticed it happens a lot with canine teeth, premolar teeth, and molar teeth. When I see that on a patient, I recommend wearing a night guard. You put it in your mouth at night. Some people wonder if they can tolerate it. Yes, if it's well made, you can. It decreases the unhealthy forces directed to your teeth and helps save them.
What is occlusal trauma?
It's basically damage to teeth, gums, and bone sockets due to grinding. This is related to abfractions, like I just showed you. That's one sign of occlusal trauma. Another one, I found interesting on the internet. When you're putting a lot of force on your teeth, you're directing forces into the teeth in an unhealthy way, increasing the chances of them breaking off. That's occlusal trauma. It usually stems from your bite. A night guard will help. Sometimes balancing your bite will help. If you have any questions, give us a call. Call our office. We can help you, or call your local doctor if you're away from California.
What are meridian teeth?
This is interesting. Meridian teeth come from traditional Chinese medicine, where each tooth is related to a certain part of your body. It's connected, like when you do acupuncture—one part of the body is connected to another, or like when you're getting a foot massage, certain parts of your feet are related to certain organs in your body. It's very similar to that. I personally don't know much about it, but I thought it was an interesting thing to research.
What are bunny teeth?
Bunny teeth. They're basically natural teeth that look bigger than the rest of your teeth. I think you all know Ariana Grande; she's known to have bunny teeth. Is there anything wrong with them? No. Kids can have cute little bunny teeth. Here's someone who has bunny teeth. Nothing wrong with them; that's just how it is.
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