Teeth Breaking - Spinal Cord Disorders Message Board

mlgable · 09-07-2003, 07:54 PM

I am wondering if any one with spinal cord injuries has ever had a problem with your teeth chipping off all the time. A friend of mine who fell off a roof in February and is paralzyed from the waist down due to a severed spinal cord is having this problem. He says all of his back teeth have been starting to chip badly. He wonders if one of his medications or something else is causing this. If he can find that it is related to his injury some how then all of his dental bills will have to be covered by workmans comp. I figured I would post this hear to see what others have to say or can tell me. Anything at all would be apreciated.

mlgable · 09-09-2003, 09:57 AM

Just checking again to see if anyone with spinal cord injuries has ever had severe dental problems either from the medications they were taking or for some other reason. My friend is looking for any info anyone has.

ChattyKathy4 · 09-09-2003, 10:09 AM

Dear mlgable,
I wish I had an answer to your friend's question, but I don't, and the same thing is happening to me. I have had l cervical discectomy, and 6 lumbar surgeries with the last one being fused with instrumentation from L-3 to the sacrum. I am now losing the feeling in my feet, and am in constant pain in my right leg that radiates into my feet. My last appointment at the Cleveland Clinic with my NS was a few weeks ago. He feels that I may need surgery again and another fusion at the L-2 level to decompress the nerve. I have an appointment at the Clinic in November with a Neurologist to have an EMG, and am going to ask him at that time if my teeth chipping off could be related in any way to my medications or my condition. I will be glad to report back to you what he tells me. In the meantime, I would advise him to check with his doctor and/or dentist and ask that question. They should be able to answer it for him. Good luck to your friend.
Kathy

gryffindorfan · 09-09-2003, 11:25 AM

Hi there:

I do not know if this will help or not, but there are seveal medications that have the side effect of causing your jaw to clench. Also, we all tend to grind our teeth or clench our jaws under stress -- often in our sleep, so while you might swear yuou never do that, you just might!

There are several drug guides available on the web...I do not know if I am allowed to tout a specific one so I will just say to Google prescription drug guides and see what you can find out.

You also might consider try wearing a bite plate at night. Your dentist can make a mold and order one for you or -- do not consider this medical or dental advice -- I actually bought a football mouthguard and followed the directions for molding it to my mouth. I had to try a few different ones until I got one that was comfortable. I read the suggestion in some magazine because the biteplates are often not convered by insurance and can be pricey. I cannot handle the process they make you go through to make the mold -- I'd rather go through labor again!

I hope this helps.
GF

mlgable · 09-09-2003, 12:41 PM

Thanks for all the comments and keep them coming. I have looked on the web and found out that many drugs that have the side effect of a dry mouth can cause increased tooth problems as tartar and plaque can build up and cause more dental problems. Since he is on meds that do that he is going to check with some dentists to see if they can link this to his teeth problem. His concern is that since he is paralyzed from a work accident and now all of a sudden his teeth are chipping and breaking and they never did before he would like to find a link to this be it medication wise or whatever so that workmen's comp will have to pick up his dental bills since he cannot afford those bills yet on his own.