What is Occlusal Adjustment?

One of the most important aspect of dentistry is what we call occlusion. You may call it your bite, how your teeth fit together. This is a bedrock of good dental health. If your bite is not perfect, you might be able to live with it, but maybe you can’t. What does that mean to you?

Well, it may be driving you crazy. You may be grinding your teeth, you may be wearing your teeth out, increasing gum disease, causing headaches, just being uncomfortable. 24/7. We take our occlusion very seriously and all our restorations are designed to work with your mouth in harmony. So when you come in, we may be looking to your teeth.

We may want you to bite on special ink paper because we want to know how is it functioning? Does it make sense for you? What are your symptoms? We look at this at all your visits and check. There are many times we ask you, now bite and hold. And I’m looking around, I’m just not looking for cavities or gums. I’m going to see how your teeth meet. How do they function.

Without good occlusion, we can’t make good restorations that last, and we can’t make them comfortable. So please remember, if your teeth are not meeting together, they feel off or something, we can help you with that. It may mean full mouth rehabilitation, but more than likely we can make a few minor adjustments – what we call equilibration – to make your jaw slide, make it more comfortable and just feel good to you. So if you have a funny feeling that something is amiss, give us a call and we’ll be glad to talk to you about it.