Teeth with Hairline Fractures?
How common is it for teeth to have "hairline fractures"?
I have a lower molar with a large old filling that is breaking down at
the edges. The dentist would like to do a crown on this tooth. They
have a mini "toothcam" that takes a picture of the tooth, and they
showed me some hairline fractures on one wall of the tooth. They
pointed out the tooth could crack on its own and especially if they had
to drill more to refill it. This would be my first crown, so I will
try to go for a second opinion. I am more than a bit concerned as to
how they think they can drill the tooth for the crown and not crack it,
but that's another matter... I can understand that if they just do a
filling the wall that would be left might be too thin and I might break
it myself while chewing on something hard...
Anyway, I took a flashlight to look at my teeth and examine the
"fractures" myself and I was horrified to realize that my front teeth,
top and bottom, each have distinct hairline "fractures" running
vertically... I can only see them by shining the flashight on them.
How common is this? Does this mean I'll eventually have to have caps
on those teeth too? And yes, I've bitten my nails for far too long...
I am pretty upset because I have large fillings in lots of teeth from
when I was a {*filter*}ager, I sense that as the fillings break down dentists
just want to replace them with crowns. Sometimes it is not just the
fillings getting old, but a bit of decay around the edge of the fillings
(leakage?). Maybe fluoride will help me?
Depressed,
Christine
the-one-who-has-regular-nightmares-about-my-teeth
all-crumbling-and-falling-out-ack! :(
