Should top front and lower teeth meet?

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Heartofdarkness
Posts: 124
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:04 am

Should top front and lower teeth meet?

#1 Post by Heartofdarkness »

I'm confused. I never thought about this before braces and now I don't know if my teeth were like this before braces as well and how normal teeth should be.

So: imagine you need to chew a tiny piece of something with your front teeth. Or like when you're biting a nail. Should all four front teeth meet? Only my left front ones meet. The right ones won't meet. How is a normal bite supposed to look?

Also, when I bite down like this (please notice I don't mean biting down like normal chewing) some of the teeth on the left side meet, but on the right there is a big gap between upper and lower teeth. I did/do have a crossbite and maybe this was the best they could do to fix that? To make my right side look like my left a lot of teeth would need to be pulled to become longer so they meet.

I hope this is possible to understand. If it's too weird described I could add pictures.

assertives
Posts: 645
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2017 5:29 am

Re: Should top front and lower teeth meet?

#2 Post by assertives »

Your font teeth should not meet edge to edge when at rest, it will only wear them down in time to come. In an ideal, healthy bite relationship, the top front incisors should overlap the bottom ones slightly (normal range is about between 1 - 4mm) I've read.

The rest of your other teeth should meet each other at rest, i.e. there should not be any gaps. Again, gaps means there is "early contact" between some of the teeth only and that would wear them out faster in time to come.

You can read more from this article I came across sometime back about ideal bite relationships that I felt was very informational. http://www.gregjorgensen.com/blog/2015/ ... look-like/

Heartofdarkness
Posts: 124
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:04 am

Re: Should top front and lower teeth meet?

#3 Post by Heartofdarkness »

No no, normal bite is not what I meant! Which I also said in the text. Don't mean to sound rude but I tend to get answers based on people just reading the title. :|
assertives wrote:Your font teeth should not meet edge to edge when at rest, it will only wear them down in time to come. In an ideal, healthy bite relationship, the top front incisors should overlap the bottom ones slightly (normal range is about between 1 - 4mm) I've read.

The rest of your other teeth should meet each other at rest, i.e. there should not be any gaps. Again, gaps means there is "early contact" between some of the teeth only and that would wear them out faster in time to come.

You can read more from this article I came across sometime back about ideal bite relationships that I felt was very informational. http://www.gregjorgensen.com/blog/2015/ ... look-like/

Heartofdarkness
Posts: 124
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:04 am

Re: Should top front and lower teeth meet?

#4 Post by Heartofdarkness »

This is how I mean: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/07/ ... 628091.jpg See how her front upper and lower teeth meet? Mine does not, and my question is: are they supposed to meet? Do your front teeth meet when you bite down like in the picture?

assertives
Posts: 645
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2017 5:29 am

Re: Should top front and lower teeth meet?

#5 Post by assertives »

Mine does. When I deliberately put them together like that, now and even before braces. I'm not an ortho, so my uneducated guess is that they are supposed to because the left and right side of our teeth are supposed to be similar in length/height.

If yours are not meeting because they are of different lengths/heights, depending on the amount of difference, your ortho may file the longer tooth down. But if there is a large gap on one side, chances are, your ortho may intrude and or extrude some teeth.

Heartofdarkness
Posts: 124
Joined: Wed Apr 12, 2017 2:04 am

Re: Should top front and lower teeth meet?

#6 Post by Heartofdarkness »

assertives wrote:Mine does. When I deliberately put them together like that, now and even before braces. I'm not an ortho, so my uneducated guess is that they are supposed to because the left and right side of our teeth are supposed to be similar in length/height.

If yours are not meeting because they are of different lengths/heights, depending on the amount of difference, your ortho may file the longer tooth down. But if there is a large gap on one side, chances are, your ortho may intrude and or extrude some teeth.
Thanks! I'm starting to worry because my ortho isn't very talkative and says there is only some minor tweaks left including moving my midline. I have already pointed out things she had missed so that they could be fixed.

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