What are the harmful effects of chewing on one side? How do you overcome?

Chewing on one side is a bad eating habit that many people often have. What are the harmful effects of chewing on one side? How to remedy this situation? SignsSymptomsList will list the unintended consequences so you know how to adjust.

When encountering dental problems such as tooth decay, tooth loss, loose teeth, broken teeth, enamel wear, etc., many people tend to only chew on one side. In fact, the habit of chewing on one side has many harmful effects on the teeth. Please refer to the remedy to protect your teeth.

What are the harmful effects of chewing on one side?

Chewing the wrong jaw or chewing on one side of the jaw is a very bad habit. After a long time, it will cause serious consequences, affecting oral health and body health. Some consequences of chewing on one side are:

Misalignment of jaw muscles, deviation of face

Chewing on the left or right side for a long time will cause the other jaw muscle to contract due to lack of exercise. Your face will be deformed, the big side is small, greatly affecting the aesthetics.

The habit of chewing on one side of the jaw will make the face deviate

Double tooth wear

The habit of chewing on one side of the jaw puts a lot of pressure on the teeth performing the chewing function on that side of the jaw. Over time, the teeth will weaken, being worn twice as normal. Dental diseases such as pulpitis, tooth decay also appear more.

Weak digestive system

Regularly chewing on one side of the jaw will prevent the food from being thoroughly crushed before it reaches the stomach. The digestive system then has to work harder to digest the food. After a long time, the digestive system also weakens, you are prone to stomach and intestinal diseases.

Temporomandibular joint injury

The temporomandibular joint performs the movements of closing the mouth, opening the mouth, eating, talking, yawning… If you chew on one side of the jaw, the temporomandibular joint will be worn unevenly on both sides. This can easily lead to misalignment or hearing the sound of joints crashing when opening the mouth.

This long-term condition makes the temporomandibular joint disorder and pain. More dangerous, the patient will not be able to open and close the mouth normally.

Because of the unpredictable consequences, doctors recommend that people chew on both sides of the jaw so that they coordinate smoothly in chewing and swallowing food. The two sides of the jaw will develop in balance, preventing bad effects on health.

Causes of forming the habit of chewing on one side

Chewing on one side of the jaw often occurs due to reasons such as:

• Toothache : This condition causes the patient to experience pain when stimulated on that side of the jaw. Therefore, many people often turn to the other jaw to chew.
• Teeth defects: The body will form a habit of chewing on one side of the jaw when the other side is not full of teeth.
• Newly extracted wisdom teeth: Chewing at the beginning of tooth extraction is often difficult to align with the other side of the jaw. Inadvertently, it will form a habit of chewing on one side of the jaw.
• Dental disease: Diseases such as gingivitis, periodontitis, tooth decay appear on one side of the jaw.

Above are some causes of forming the habit of chewing only on one side of the jaw. If you are subjective and do not fix it soon, health consequences will arise in a short time.

How to get rid of the bad habit of chewing on one tooth

The habit of chewing on one side of the jaw leads to many serious consequences for oral health. Get rid of this bad habit as soon as possible.

To determine if you can chew on one side of your jaw or not, you need to focus on your meals, pay attention to how you chew. If the tooth is decayed, painful, making it difficult to chew evenly, you should go to the dentist for treatment. 

You need to go to the dentist to treat dental disease

For families with small children, parents need to observe how their baby eats. If you find that your child has a bad habit of chewing on one side, please guide the child to adjust the way to chew properly. In addition, parents should also regularly review the condition of their children's teeth to understand if they have problems or not. 

In case the baby has tooth decay or the gums around the root are bleeding or inflamed, quickly take your baby to the dentist for early treatment.

Methods to correct a misaligned jaw caused by chewing on one side

Today, the remedy for chewing on one side of the jaw is relatively simple. Depending on the cause of this habit, your doctor will advise you on the appropriate treatment plan.

In case the jaw is deviated due to the bad habit of chewing on one side since childhood, practice balanced chewing on both sides of the jaw. Besides, you also need to combine with facial massage exercises. There are many effective massage exercises to help improve facial muscles. They can all be done at home, both convenient and cost-effective.

However, if the jaw is too deviated, the massage method will not guarantee the desired results. At that time, you need to go to a reputable dental clinic or a hospital specializing in maxillofacial surgery for examination and advice.

If the jaw deviation due to chewing on one side occurs due to medical causes such as gingivitis, tooth decay, periodontitis, then you should go to the dentist for definitive treatment. This will help you to overcome the skewed function. Dentists will treat tooth decay or periodontitis, restoring the chewing function of the tooth to its original state.

Braces help overcome misaligned jaw due to bad habit of chewing on one side

Another method of correcting misalignment is braces. Patients do not need to endure pain during surgery. When the misaligned teeth return to the standard bite, the misaligned jawbone will also change. Time to fix this situation is 12 to 18 months.

You can also apply surgical measures to affect the shape of the jawbone, treat the misalignment of the jaw due to the habit of chewing on one side. This is the optimal solution to overcome the large asymmetry on the face. With this method, the doctor will add or remove the jawbone, fix them to adjust until the overall face is harmonious and symmetrical. The time to perform a jawbone orthopedic surgery is from 3 to 4 hours with a high cost.

Hopefully the sharing from SignsSymptomsList has helped you gain more useful knowledge about the harmful effects of the habit of chewing on one side . Get rid of it immediately, adjust the whole jaw to ensure oral health and function. In addition, visit your dentist regularly to promptly detect and treat dental disease!