Is Your Jaw Alignment Making You Mumble?

Dentist Blog

When people think about braces, often their minds go directly to crooked teeth. However, there's a lot more that orthodontics can help with that goes beyond simple overcrowded teeth. If you have a mumbling problem that you can't seem to overcome, it may not be your fault. Depending on the alignment of your jaw, it may be contributing to or completely causing your mumbling. Here's how:

Tongue Position

You may not give it much thought, but your tongue plays a huge role in your ability to speak. The placement and shape of the tongue when you speak sounds can change the way that you sound, and if your tongue isn't doing the right thing, you may mumble as a result.

This is a problem because people who have small lower jaws may not have as much space as they need for their tongues to fully relax and stretch out. Making the correct shape and reaching the same position with your tongue as someone who has the normal amount of jaw space may be difficult, if not impossible.

Top and Bottom Teeth Meet

Your teeth and jaw also play a role in your ability to speak clearly and enunciate. Human languages developed based upon people having similarly shaped jaws, teeth, and tongues. Teeth are supposed to rest against each other evenly, but if your jaws aren't symmetrical with each other, they may not rest in the same position as other people's. As a result, trying to enunciate can be difficult. In some cases, conditions like TMJ can also make it harder to speak clearly, as it can become difficult to open your jaw all the way as comfortably as others can.

What to Do

If you have difficulty speaking clearly and haven't talked to an orthodontist yet, now is the time to do so. Your orthodontist will listen to your concerns and then perform a general exam of your teeth. Since orthodontists deal with realigning teeth and jaws all the time, they'll be able to tell very quickly if you have a problem that may be impeding your speech.

Treatment will depend upon your personal needs. If your lower jaw is too small, braces and sometimes surgery can be used to open it up further or widen it. It will also depend upon your age; when the jaw is still growing, it can be guided into the shape or position the orthodontist wants. However, help is still possible even in adulthood.

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11 March 2022

Coping With Dental Emergencies

My son was outside playing with some friends when he accidentally fell down and hit his mouth on the sidewalk. The fall knocked out his front tooth, so I immediately placed the tooth in a small jar and added some milk. I rushed my son to the dental clinic and the dentist immediately took us into the examination room. The dentist placed the tooth back into the socket and saved it. My name is Beverly Tillman and thanks to the quick work of the dentist, my son didn't lose his tooth. Since this was a scary time for me and my son, I wanted to write this blog as a source of information for other parents who are facing a dental emergency. First of all, don't panic and get to your dentist as soon as possible. I hope this blog will help to answer your questions about dental emergencies.