When your dentist checks your bite, they’re evaluating your dental occlusion. ‘Occlusion’ refers to the way your upper and lower teeth come together when you close your mouth. While slight variations are normal, a poorly balanced bite can place excessive forces on certain teeth, contributing to wear, fractures and jaw discomfort over time.
Many people have bite problems without realizing it because the changes develop gradually over many years.
A Healthy Bite Distributes Pressure Evenly
Every time you chew or swallow, your teeth come together with considerable force. Ideally, those forces are shared across multiple teeth so that no single tooth absorbs more pressure than it was designed to handle.
When teeth are misaligned, worn or missing, that balance changes. Certain teeth may contact too early or too heavily, creating what’s known as a “high spot.” These excessive forces can gradually wear away enamel, loosen fillings, chip teeth or place additional stress on the supporting ligaments.
Even small changes in your bite, such as a cracked tooth or a new dental restoration that sits slightly high, can affect how your teeth function together.
Your Bite Can Affect More Than Your Teeth
Dental occlusion doesn’t just influence your smile. It can also affect the muscles that control chewing and the temporomandibular joints (TMJs), which connect your jaw to your skull.
An uneven bite may contribute to symptoms such as jaw fatigue, soreness when chewing, clicking or popping joints, headaches or tenderness in the muscles around the temples and cheeks. While these symptoms can have many causes, evaluating the bite is often an important part of diagnosing ongoing jaw discomfort.
It’s also common to see excessive tooth grinding in patients whose teeth are experiencing uneven biting forces. Over time, this can accelerate enamel wear and increase the risk of cracked teeth.
How Dentists Evaluate Occlusion
Evaluating occlusion involves much more than asking you to bite together. During an examination, we assess how your teeth contact in both static and moving positions. Thin articulating paper helps identify pressure points that aren’t always visible to the naked eye, while worn tooth surfaces, fractured fillings and recession near the gumline can provide clues that excessive biting forces are present.
We also evaluate whether changes in your bite may be related to missing teeth, previous dental work, orthodontic movement or nighttime grinding.
Restoring a Healthy Bite
Treatment depends entirely on the cause of the problem. In some cases, a minor adjustment to a filling or crown restores proper balance. Patients who grind their teeth may benefit from a custom night guard to reduce excessive forces while they sleep. Orthodontic treatment, replacing missing teeth or restoring worn teeth may also improve occlusion in more complex situations.
At Dr. Caroline’s family dental practice in Red Deer, we view your bite as an essential part of your long-term oral health. By identifying occlusal problems early, we can often prevent unnecessary tooth wear, fractures and jaw discomfort before they become more significant concerns.