If you’re finding it difficult to chew, you’re likely living with compromised health without even realizing it. Chewing difficulties can affect your diet and force you to eat foods that are less healthy. As a result, your overall health might be compromised. Fortunately, at Beyond Exceptional Dentistry, we can help restore your ability to chew so you can eat a wide range of healthy foods again.

Top Causes of Chewing Difficulties

The best way to determine how to enhance your chewing ability is to determine the cause of your chewing difficulties. There are many factors that can affect your chewing and include the following.

Bad Bite

One of the top reasons why you might find chewing difficult is if you have a bad bite. When your bite doesn’t fit correctly together, chewing can feel uncomfortable. It can cause jaw pain and in some cases, you might not be able to chew correctly. Bad bites can also contribute to TMJ disorders.

Examples of bite problems include:

Open Bite – When there’s an opening between the lower and upper front teeth when biting together.

Crossbite – When the molars fit together like puzzle pieces but one or more upper teeth don’t close together properly over the bottom teeth.

Underbite – When the bottom teeth stick out past the top teeth.

Overbite – When the top teeth stick out further than the bottom teeth.

Missing Teeth

Another reason why you might have a difficult time chewing is that you have missing teeth. Whether you have one or more missing teeth, just losing one can affect your ability to chew. The more teeth missing though, the more likely you will struggle to chew certain foods. This can cause you to completely change your diet to soft foods in order to satiate your hunger.

TMJ

If you suffer from temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD), one of the top symptoms you will experience is a sore jaw. When your jaw is sore, you will want to move it as little as possible. This can cause you to eat nothing but soft or liquid foods which can have a huge impact on your daily nutrition intake.

Poorly Fitted Dentures

The last reason for chewing problems is poorly fitting dentures. When your dentures don’t fit correctly, they can easily slip and slide around in your mouth. This can make biting into apples, steak, carrots, and any type of hard, crunchy, or chewy food incredibly difficult. You might resort to surviving off apple sauce and mashed potatoes to survive.

Chewing Problems and Limited Diet

Sadly, when you experience chewing difficulties, it prevents many people from eating lean meats and rough, textured vegetables. Instead, they’re often forced to eat a softer diet consisting of high-glycemic foods, which promote all sorts of problems, including low energy associated with crashes.

The dangers and negatives associated with high-glycemic diets are becoming more known by the day. High-glycemic foods digest rapidly which causes spikes in insulin. As a result, it can promote obesity, diabetes, and sugar crashes. Now, new studies indicate that high-glycemic foods can also promote addictive responses in our brains.

Low-glycemic foods take longer to digest which means lean meats and fibrous vegetables prevent insulin spikes and provide longer periods of lasting energy. By avoiding high-glycemic foods, such as processed white bread, potatoes, and sugary snacks, you can reduce your likelihood of health problems, chronic fatigue, and cravings that result from addictive activity within the brain.

By measuring your carbohydrate intake and paying attention to their glycemic index, you can help regulate your blood glucose level. 

Treatment Options To Improve Chewing Ability

Thankfully, if you’re struggling to chew efficiently and effectively, Beyond Exceptional Dentistry has a lot of options that will help.

Tooth Replacement

If you’re missing teeth or have poorly fitting dentures, we offer several tooth replacement options. These include dental implants, CeraSmile® , and The Fountain of Youth Denture™. Each of these options will stay secure in your mouth so you can eat a wide range of foods with no trouble at all!

Orthodontics

If a misaligned bite causes your difficulty to eat, orthodontics might be the right choice for you. We offer Invisalign clear aligners and Six Month Smiles in-house but if your case is too severe, we might refer you to an orthodontist. Regardless, achieving a better bite will help relieve pain and make chewing more comfortable.

TMJ Treatment

Marked by headaches, jaw pain, jaw popping, and chewing difficulties, TMD can make life miserable. Fortunately, our Savannah dentists offer their patients lasting relief from TMD by providing a treatment strategy that corrects the root cause of the disorder. We use a neuromuscular approach to help balance your jaw joints. Your TMJ treatment will involve using TENS technology to relax your jaw muscles, wearing an oral splint, Invisalign treatment, and/or restorative treatments to rebuild your bite. We will custom make your treatment plan to meet your needs. Your treatment will help relieve painful symptoms so you can eat pain-free.

Contact Our Savannah Dentists To Enhance Your Chewing Ability Today

If you want to enjoy eating again and not live with a soft or liquid food diet, our dentists in Savannah can help. Take back your life and contact our office today to schedule an appointment. We will help determine the cause of your eating difficulty and provide you with solutions.