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Teenagers & Their Oral Health

The teenage years are a difficult period of life marked by dramatic physiologic and emotional change. Today's teenagers face a variety of health challenges related to their increasing maturity, their new relationships in society and their developing sense of self.

Teenagers have a significant oral health concern as well. More than 80% of teenagers experience tooth decay. Rapid facial growth and the transition from baby teeth to adult teeth mark this as a period of significant oral-facial change. The adult teeth and the gum tissue which support them can only last a lifetime if there is a lifetime of care.

An important development task for each teenager is the assumption of responsibility of their personal and professional oral health care.

The oral hygiene habits that are imparted to our young children from the basis for their adult health care practices. As parents, building good oral hygiene habits into our children's everyday lifestyle will make the transition through the teenage years, into adulthood a time free of tooth decay and periodontal disease.

~Spring '94
 

 
Clinicians Corner: Grrr-inding
 
What can be worse than the sound of fingernails scratched along the blackboard?
 
It's junior, fast asleep, grinding away. Mom shows up in your office one day with junior. They have just returned from vacation during which everyone shared the same hotel room. The only one to get any sleep was junior, whose grinding was so loud, that everyone else was kept awake.
 
Doctor, what is wrong with my child? Mom, you answer, what junior does not need is therapy to help cope with excessive stress.
 
What's happening, is that junior is responding to allergies. When the membranes lining the sinuses and eustacian tubes swell in response to an antigen, the gradient wall pressure between these cavities within our bodies changes with respect to that pressure outside of our bodies. Subconsciously, we sense that pressure and try to eliminate it by squeezing the teeth of our lower jaw against the teeth of our upper jaw, which in turn translates pressure up through the sinuses.
 
Compare this to the response of banging your arm against a hard object. The first response to the pain is to rub the sore area. The pressure eliminates the pain.
 
Similarly, consider those people that have 'ear problems' during the take-off and landing of an airplane. Chewing gum is the universal remedy to alleviate this often painful symptom.
 
Howard, Stephen. "'Clinicians Corner': Grrr-inding." California Society Of Pediatric Dentists Bulletin
      XVII.2 (Summer 1991): 2.