STORY
WHAT'S
THE
ALL AMERICAN
MASCULINE SMILE
ESTEBAN:
When you move to New York City from somewhere else in the world, you're going to notice that things are different here. For me, coming from South America, the excitement was something I could practically reach out and touch. And there was stress, too, tension and pressure, building on me day after day, year after year, and I was taking it out on my teeth every night. I wasn't even aware of it, but I was clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth. If I caught myself doing it during the day, I could stop, but at night I just kept grinding away. The result was that my teeth were a mess. They were never as good as that big perfect All-American look I kept seeing on the streets of New York, anyway, so why not take care of two problems at once?
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BEFORE
&
AFTER
"IT'S
PROBABLY NO SURPRISE
THAT
GRINDING IS TERRIBLE FOR THE TEETH"
DOCTORS
SAY
It probably comes as no surprise that a lot of people who live in a big urban area have "bruxism" on their dental charts because stressed-out people often clench their jaws and grind their teeth. And it's probably no surprise that grinding is terrible for the teeth. Esteban had done some serious damage on his teeth. So much of that structure had been ground away that it became translucent, which changes the appearance of the tooth's color. Perhaps you know it's possible to wear down the enamel on the surface of your teeth. But you probably don't know that if your bite isn't perfect you can actually weaken your tooth enamel through grinding at night. This vertical force causes the enamel to fracture, which is called "abfraction." We can't reduce your stress but we can restore your teeth. And contrary to Esteban's impression, not everybody on the streets of New York has perfect teeth. But you might notice an extraordinary number of great smiles on Central Park South.
