Craze or crack?

[Yourbigpalal83]

Ok I know I'm a pain but I need to ask this.

My niece recently got me a dental mirror (I didn't ask for one so blame her for this lol) but I was checking my teeth with it and on the lower front tooth I slightly chipped back in Feb (Tooth number 24 I believe) when I shine my LED light through it I notice Horizontal lines on the back of the tooth. Now, it appears that the whole tooth lights up thus transilluminating it, and I know every tooth has its share of craze lines (shallow cracks in the enamel that are of no consequence)

But from my understanding, those lines are almost always vertical. These are Horazontal. Are these shallow cracks or crazed line? There appear to be several.

The last thing I want to do is to annoy my dentist yet again over something so foolish yet I don't want a front lower tooth breaking off on me either.

Now I can't take a picture of it cause I don't have 3 hands to hold the mirror, light and camera at the same time so I did a quick drawing to illustrate the point.

Again I have no pain whatsoever on the tooth or any sensitivity.

What are the odds these are crazed lines, or even scrapes from a dental cleaning? Or if these are cracks, will they propagate and split the tooth and what can I do to prevent that?

I'm nervous here and I just want to avoid any major problems whatsoever

Thanks
Al

 

[rob wain]

relax.
lots of teeth have crazing lines, most often they're vertical but oftentimes horizontal too. The cracks will be in the enamel only, the dentine holds the tooth together.
Don't worry it really doesn't mean the tooth is going to break.

 

[Yourbigpalal83]

Thanks. I've been looking at it and the lack of symptoms and the fact that it lights up the whole tooth indicate to me it's most likely craze lines caused when I chipped the tooth back in Feb. It's scary but ya know what, it's not broken so I'm lucky there.

I'm just way too obsessed over this dental stuff that it really affects me, yet I've been told by several dentists I'm absolutely fine. Idk why I can't just accept that...It's really a compulsion for me to check and search for problems ya know.

 

[Spike 1969]

I have a horizontal enamel crack on one of my front teeth, I was advised as per Robs post above by my dentist at the time, that was over 24 years ago and it's still absolutely fine.

Hope this is of help.