The following are not for the weak of stomach.
Here's a picture of my smile from graduation. Look on the left half of my mouth (you facing, not my left). It's the second tooth from the left. It's much smaller, without a point, compared to the second tooth from the right.
Compare to the pointy tooth (now third from the right) in this picture, also from graduation:
I can't believe none of you noticed this before. You don't usually notice my hair cuts either.
From other pictures, I know that this tooth has been point-less since graduation. It looks like it's been worn down since December 2006. I don't have enough close-ups of me to analyze my smile easily. I wish I were more vain. I go back to the dentist soon for a cleaning, so I will ask him about if it's possible that I broke the tooth in ultimate and what the tooth looked like in my 2004 x-rays.
4 comments:
Before I make my guess, can you clarify which tooth you're talking about? I believe you're talking about your upper left canine (tends to be the pointy one) rather than what you first described, which was your upper right canine. I'm going to assume you're talking about your upper left canine (third from the place where people like me without braces have a gap).
Since your dentist didn't notice any other tooth wear, it's unlikely that a worn canine is the result of grinding your teeth at night. If that were the case, there would be evidence on your lower left canine or premolar (right behind it), depending on how your teeth occlude (overbite, underbite, etc.). You can see wear facets on your teeth if you look in the mirror and angle the light right. You'll probably see little flat and slanted patches on your teeth, particularly the canines and the premolars. So look for odd wear patterns.
(OK, I just noticed that you had your lower premolars removed. At least, from the blurry bottom pic, that's what it looks like to me.)
As for chipping, you likely would have noticed if it happened. Even small chips change the way that your teeth feel, and something that dramatically decreased the point of the canine in a short time would leave your tongue with phantom tooth cusp syndrome. It takes a while for a chipped tooth to "remodel" at any rate. You have to wear down the ragged, chipped part into a smooth tooth, which happens but takes longer in our processed-cooked-food culture.
My guess is that, unless you took up pipe smoking, you've been chewing a pencil or pen between your teeth while working and not noticing it. So? Have you? If not, ask the dentist again. Perhaps it has something to do with your orthodontia. I have no idea what effect that has on teeth, since my dead Romans were never buried with their retainers. ;)
Oh, and I totally want more teeth pictures. Don't worry, though. The points of my canines wore down a long time ago, and I have this little crescent-shaped wear facet on one of my incisors because my lower incisor is slightly misaligned and higher than the other lower ones. Whatever. Just be glad you're not an ancient Native American. At 30, you'd have very few teeth left, and they'd be worn down to stubs.
< /end treatise >
I'm not even 30 yet (almost!), and look how worn down my teeth are already.
I think it's from the gravel in my chewing gum.
Oh, gross, Patrick. Those teeth aren't worn - the enamel has been severely eaten away by a meth habit.
My pipe-chewing, of course, doesn't look much better. ;)
I had my premolars removed. I think in that picture it's the second from the left of the teeth you can see.
I don't think I chew pens or pencils that much. I have occasionally, and maybe that's been enough to wear it down over 20 years. I do bite my nails, though. I'm trying to stop, but I've been trying to stop that for 18 years or so. (I can quit for a few weeks, but that's about it.)
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