Tooth wear and a collapsing bite: more than a cosmetic issue

Teeth get shorter, the face seems to settle, chips and cracks appear. This is not harmless ageing — and fixing a single crown is not enough here.

With excessive wear, enamel and dentine are lost faster than they can be restored. Teeth shorten, and with them the vertical dimension of the bite — the distance between the jaws when closed. From the outside it reads as a tired face: the chin moves closer to the nose, the corners of the mouth drop, folds appear around the lips.

Why it needs treating

• the load redistributes and the remaining teeth break down faster
• the jaw joint suffers — clicking, pain and tension appear
• the risk of chips and cracks grows, up to a fractured tooth
• the longer you wait, the more complex and expensive the restoration

What usually lies behind it

The causes are rarely single. Most often it is night-time clenching and grinding, loss of some teeth and overloading of the rest, acid erosion and an originally incorrect bite. As long as the cause is active, any new restoration will break down the way the natural teeth did.

How treatment is built

Diagnosis comes first: X-rays, impressions or scanning, analysis of the bite and the joint. Then a plan in which the vertical dimension is restored step by step and under control, often through temporary structures so the patient adapts to the new jaw position. Permanent work follows only after that.

It is a substantial project, and it is fairer to say so upfront. In return the result holds for years and solves the functional problem, not only the visible one.