Your daily habits, both the good and the bad leave clues on your body. If you exercise and eat well, a leaner physique is the clue it leaves behind, if you don’t sleep well, there might be dark circles around your eyes.
Since I lack the creativity of a mystery novelist, I get my kick from tracking the clues left by the habits of my patients.
Here are 5 clues left on the teeth from daily habits:
1. Brown discoloration of the teeth: Tells me you indulge in one of 2 drugs – tobacco or coffee.
2. Shaved off molar teeth: Tells me you are a teeth grinder, maybe some stress or anxiety issues lurking within?
3. Protruding upper front teeth: Maybe you sucked your thumb as a child or never got fitted for a well deserved retainer or braces.
4. Cavities: Tells me you might be having one candy too many or you might be pregnant.
What does pregnancy have to do with cavities?
Fetuses and babies are not known for being benevolent. They take up everything you have. It’s gimme, gimme all the way. So if you are pregnant and want to keep your teeth, eat calcium rich foods like fish or cheese or use supplemental vitamins (prenatal vitamins).
5. Gap teeth: a~la Madonna and Michael Strahan. I hope you did not fall for this one, no habits to uncover for gap teeth. It is a normal variant.
It was a surprise to discover the key role good dental health plays in overall health.
I had relatively perfect teeth, only one cavity, before I got pregnant. Then I managed to get 3 wisdom teeth extracted, another cavity filled & several invasive cleanings. Good thing I love my dentist!
What pregnancy does to us!
Those are interesting observations.. Allot of those lead to bad breath as well.
I like your list. My sister is a teeth grinder. So far, I have pretty good teeth. Sometimes, I have to much coffee and they aren’t as white as I like them.
That’s so cool how you can tell so much about a person based off their teeth!
This was a great quick read! Dental health is so-o important to your overall health! Thank you for sharing!!
I need some work done from eating too much citrus my entire life. The enamel needs some help.
I didn’t realize cavities and pregnancy could be related. That’s interesting!
I do enjoy my coffee so I have stains on my teeth. I also had 5 kids too so cavities