Many people end up cracking or chipping their teeth at some point in their lives. A majority of cracked and chipped teeth injuries are preventable.
To illustrate that point, I’ve come up with 10 easy ways that you can crack and chip your teeth. A lot of the ways don’t even involve doing anything.
Here’s a tip: If you want to keep your teeth crack and chip free, don’t do anything on the list below!
10 Easy Ways to Crack or Chip Your Teeth
1 – Get your tongue pierced and wear a hard metal object in it. The hard metal will constantly bump up against your teeth and can chip and/or cause cracks. A major cause of chips in front teeth is from tongue barbells.
2 – Don’t wear a protective athletic mouth guard when playing sports. This one’s pretty easy, since it involves doing nothing. Just don’t go to your dentist and get a custom mouthguard made, and you’ll be at a much higher risk for getting a cracked or chipped tooth.
That’s not all mouth guards do! Here’s six reasons to wear an athletic mouthguard.
3 – Chew on ice or any other hard object. To read more about the damage that chewing on ice does to your teeth, read How Chewing on Ice Affects Your Teeth.
Another common culprit of cracked teeth is popcorn kernels. For some reason, people like to finish the whole bag of popcorn, and if some kernels didn’t pop like they were supposed to, they feel like they need to get eaten too. If your popcorn bowl looks like the one below when you’re done, then congratulations!
4 – Use your teeth as tools – to open things, use them as scissors to cut tape or cut tags off of new clothes. Pretty much any way you use your teeth as tools, you will be putting excessive wear on them that could cause small cracks.
5 – Grind your teeth and don’t do anything about it. If you grind your teeth, you could end up cracking them or even wearing your teeth down to almost nothing. If you think that you may be grinding your teeth while you sleep, it’s best to talk to your dentist about it. Most dentists will make an appliance you can wear to help stop teeth grinding.
6 – Don’t brush, make sure you get a big cavity, then go to your dentist and have a really big filling put in your tooth. By losing so much tooth structure to tooth decay, it will be a lot easier to get your tooth to crack.
7 – Don’t get braces. By not having the teeth in proper alignment, it is easier to put stresses on them when you bite, which could lead to worn down teeth, or cracking in more extreme circumstances.
8 – Clench your teeth often. A lot of people clench their teeth when they’re stressed out. Well, clenching can also stress out your teeth! That’s alright if you want to crack or chip your teeth, but if you want to keep your teeth nice and healthy for a lifetime, try to stop clenching.
9 – Keep on getting older. After a lifetime of wear, teeth can get pretty worn down and cracked. Some experts believe that as you get older, your teeth become more brittle, which makes them more prone to cracking.
10 – Eat rocks or bones. It does happen. A lot of people find rocks in a can of re-fried beans or don’t sort out rocks from dried beans. Another culprit is finding a bone in a fast food hamburger or chicken sandwich. When you unexpectedly bite into something hard with a lot of force, it can easily crack or chip a tooth.
Conclusion
Ideally, you should try to not do anything on the above list. Alright… Unless you can live forever like the Tuck family in Tuck Everlasting(4th grade reading assignment), you probably can’t avoid #9. #10 is also pretty hard to avoid, but the rest of the list involves choices that we make that can wear down our teeth over time.
Do you have any questions or comments about cracked or chipped teeth? Leave them in the comments section below! Thanks for reading!
i have just cracked my tooth by chewing a pen
I hope you were able to get it fixed, Chris. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Hi Tom,
I had problem with cold and hot, went to doctor he did filling (though he asked both side left/right 2nd last tooth) but I requested for 1 left side filling and if goes well then will do the 2nd (right one).
Filling didn’t work after exact one year it was paining horrible and I went to different doctor and he said its cracked. He advised to take it off but I was reluctant at that time so doctor did temporary filling.
Its now 11 months with no pain, now 2 weeks back temporary filling came out. I again went to Doctor and on 2nd Doctor analysis he also said to take it off.
As there is no pain, I am wondering what do to.
Due to my job’s different location I went all the times to 3 different doctors.
Please suggest what should I do, I’m not keen to loose my tooth.
My son was intubated at birth twice and now his dentist is saying that this was the cause of damage to his tooth buds, which is now affecting his teeth. He has just had an x-ray and the dentist says that three teeth are giving him concern and that he wants to open up one tooth.
An earlier dentist filled over tooth decay and one of his back teeth is probably looking at an extraction, his current dentist said that he had never come across a case of a dentist filling over decay in a child’s mouth ever and he was really shocked.
Why does the dentist want to open up one of my son’s teeth and to what end?
Will my son need false teeth?
We are both really worried.
Kind regards.
If I jut press my finger tip with my Canines teeth can it crack??
I been having pain when chewing on hard food but the pain only appears sometimes and the intensity of the pain changes each time. This happened around at least a few months ago but the symptoms went away and I didn’t check it out. Recently, I had cold sensitivity on that tooth (top molar) when eating ice cream and the discomfort was the most I felt and it lingered on for about 5 to10 mins but it was still bearable compared to the pain upon chewing pressure. (Which is sort of like nerves/ligaments being pulled coming from under the tooth). I also see a bit of light grey color when I checked it myself with mirror, but dentist said he doesnt notice the color so I dont know why he said that. I also can feel part of my tooth is chipped as it feels a bit sharp upon my tongue touching that area.
He couldn’t find any problems even with x-ray, he referred me to endodontist suspecting of cracked teeth.
Besides cracked teeth, is it possible for other causes? What are they? And what are the solutions for cracked teeth besides root canal or crown? And is it possible to remineralize teeth in my situation to get rid of this pain forever?
If I go to the endodontist, what type of tests will they do to find out if it’s cracked teeth or other problems?
Hope you can help me out as I have been scared to chew on that side of my mouth, thanks.