Tongue Studs Can Cause Tooth Gaps

Wellness

oi-Suparna Chakaraborthy

By Suparna Chakaraborthy

Tuesday, August 3, 2010, 16:16

The very 'IN' fashion of tongue stub can leave you with a gap between two upper front teeth, says a research. According to the researchers, when we close our mouth our tongue rests on the upper teeth and we with the stud on we generally tend to push it against the teeth which causes the gap in course of time.

"It is a basic tenet of orthodontic that force, over time, moves teeth," said the study's primary investigator, Sawsan Tabbaa.

Tabbaa also noted in his study of Buffalo high school tongue pierced students that pushing of barbell implant/stud caused a damaging habit whereby subjects pushed the metal stud up against and between their upper front teeth, a habit commonly referred to among the students as "playing."

Tabbaa's case study was on a 26- year-old female patient examined at UB''s orthodontic clinic who complained that a large space had developed between her upper central incisors or upper front teeth. The patient also had a tongue piercing that held a barbell-shaped tongue stud.

She had her tongue pierced seven years ago and she confessed of 'playing ' with the stud. After all these years the gap between the teeth has become very visible.

"The barbell is never removed because the tongue is so vascular that leaving the stud out can result in healing of the opening in the tongue, said Tabbaa, so it makes perfect sense that constant pushing of the stud against the teeth -- every day with no break -- will move them or drive them apart."

The patient also provided prove to the research team of not suffering diastema, or space, prior to having her tongue pierced. For the purposes of treating this patient''s space, it was assumed that positioning of the tongue stud between the maxillary central incisors or "playing" caused the midline space. Her treatment involved a fixed braces appliance to push the front teeth back together.

Tongue stubs are not good oral health. Apart from gap in the tooth, it can also result in many other kinds of serious injury like infection, chipped and fractured teeth, trauma to the gums and, in the worst cases, brain abscess, said Tabbaa.