What Causes Craze Lines?

[amh]

Hello-

About 4 weeks ago I pit down on a hard cracker (gardetto) to break a piece off for my daughter. I bit towards the left side of my mouth, I believe the cracker came into contact with my canine, lateral, and central. I bit kind of quickly, then right after I felt a little pain and thought maybe I broke a tooth. I looked in the mirror and everything was fine. Then the sunlight hit my tooth just right and it looked like there was a crack down the middle of my front tooth #9. No mobility, you can only see the line with the right light.

I am 31 and I know these lines are more common in older people. I am so depressed and upset about biting on the cracker. Is it possible that biting on the cracker caused this line or was it there before and I didn't notice it?? My bite is a little off and my lower incisor hits the top regularly do to my occlusion after ortho.....

My main question is what causes these craze lines and did I do it my biting hard on this cracker?????? Please help!!!

 

[FrightenedJerk]

I'd like to bump this question. The forum's generous answerers said in another, similar thread that they are pretty much harmless. However, I'd like to ask again what causes them usually, and whether they can become worse over time and possibly go all the way through a tooth to break it. I have one on the side of a lower molar which grows around a small cavity on the side of that tooth. The ones I only discovered in the past year are on both front top teeth. Like "amh" mentioned, the light has to hit it just right to view it.

My top two front teeth are a little eroded, the same way that dentists in ProNamel commercials describe -- the little ridges on the bottom. I'm concerned that they're a little thin, and that with a wrong bite the craze could break all the way through. Is this a possibility?

 

[littlestar88]

Sorry I can't be more help but when they show that in the pronamel advert it says 'dramatisation' or something at the bottom (or at least it does in Australia) so I'm always a little suspicious of it. Sorry can't be more help.

 

[Gordon]

Craze lines are quite common, they usually are related to the way the enamel was laid down by the ameloblast cells as the tooth was forming, they're probably best thought of as being like growth rings on a tree, they can become more prominent as you age because they get a bit stained up and more noticeable. They're completely harmless almost all of the time. Sometimes they can be brought on by a trauma, the best analogy would be crazing of a porcelain mug. Again, quite harmless. They can't break all the way through unless subjected to quite massive trauma.