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Man's teeth worn away by years of nightly grinding

A Hsinchu man who did not know he was grinding his teeth at night eventually found half his bottom teeth had worn away, the man's dentist said.

"When he put his top and bottom teeth together, you could not see his bottom teeth at all," said Chen Ruey-song (陳瑞松), an associate professor of Dentistry at National Taiwan University Medical School.

The man eventually sought help because chewing and eating had become painful.

Chen said the top 4mm or 5mm of all 14 of the man's bottom teeth had been worn away by grinding, while 2mm or 3mm in the top row was also worn away. The entire bottom row of teeth had to be capped with special porcelain crowns computer designed to fit each tooth at a total cost of NT$350,000.

"The patient was unwilling to use traditional crowns because his teeth had been worn down so close to the nerve that it would have been necessary to extract the nerves of each tooth before proceeding," Chen said. "Thanks to the crowns he received, we were able to preserve much more of his teeth."

The man was not aware of his teeth-grinding habit, Chen said.

"When I asked him if he had a habit of grinding his teeth, he said he wasn't sure," Chen said. "His wife also did not recall hearing him grind his teeth at night."

"Given the condition of his teeth, he must have been grinding his teeth for years, if not decades," Chen said, adding that teeth grinding, or bruxism, is often associated with stress.

"The man works in the high-tech industry," Chen said.

"If he does not stop grinding his teeth, I will eventually have to cap all his top teeth as well," Chen said.
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