Your way of dealing with boredom or stress may include biting nails, pencil caps, or chewing ice, but oral health experts warn that this may lead to cracked, crumbling, or broken teeth, as well as the inability to control your cravings to chew ice. It may reflect the presence of some health problems that need to be solved.
Chewing ice breaks your teeth
Chewing ice can cause cracks in tooth enamel, called “craze lines,” which can spread, eventually causing a tooth to break. It can also cause chipped or broken teeth that are particularly at risk.
Holly Shaw, an assistant professor at Columbia University School of Dental Medicine in the United States of America, said in an interview with the Washington Post, “Although tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body, it can still be damaged by repeatedly chewing something hard.” “Snow definitely falls into this category.”
Non-functional oral activities
Ice chewing is one of the habits known as non-functional oral activities, which include teeth grinding, thumb sucking, lip biting and other repetitive mouth actions, and are very common with up to 90% of people exhibiting such behaviors, often due to stress, anxiety and emotional factors. Other.
Alec Edelman, a lecturer in oral health policy and epidemiology at Harvard Dental School, warns that these practices can cause permanent damage to the teeth and gums, and put pressure on the ligaments that connect the tooth to the surrounding bone, which can cause bleeding and bone recession.
“These habits may not always be harmful and harmful in and of themselves to healthy teeth,” Edelman says. “But when teeth are compromised or compromised for any number of different reasons, they become a little more dangerous.”
People most at risk may be those with an unbalanced bite, which means their upper and lower teeth do not fit together properly when they bite down. Chewing on ice or other hard objects may stress their teeth or hurt their gums. Older restorations such as fillings, crowns, metal removal, or a genetic predisposition to broken teeth may also increase the risk of damage.
The type of snow can also be a factor. Large, hard pieces are more likely to cause damage, while smaller, softer ice with a softer texture will provide the same crunch with much less force. “So you get that calming and focusing effect of chewing something crunchy without it being painful,” Shaw says.
What else should you know?
“Cravings for ice or things with no nutritional value, such as dirt or paper, have been linked to some health issues including iron deficiency, so people who constantly crave ice should talk to their doctor,” Shaw reported.
If people do not have any condition associated with the behavior, but simply need the behavior, experts suggest alternatives such as:
- Drink liquids through a straw.
- Chew sugar-free gum.
- Bite on raw carrots to get that crunch.