Lip Piercing Can Cause Serious Dental Problems

Do you have a lip piercing? Does your daughter have anything like that? Many young people want to have lip piercing, despite of all dangers and risks related to this controversial “beauty”. Apart of possible infections, bleeding, nerve damage, various traumas, loss of sensation,  increased chances for drooling, pains, burns, allergic reactions, gum disease and other numerous problems, the scientists found out one more reason to avoid doing this difficult procedure. According to a new research carried out by dental specialists from the Ohio State University in Columbus, people with lip piercing have increased chances to have receding gums in front teeth.
The experiments involved 58 participants, 29 of which had lip piercing. The doctors used several approaches to measure their gum recession, and it turned out that those, who have no lip piercing have about 33% lower chances to have receding gums on their bottom front teeth. At that, other estimations showed that the longer a person has lip piercing, the higher chances he or she has to have problems with bottom front teeth. For example, those who have lip piercing for 36 months have 80% higher chances to have gum recession.
The stud of the piercing is the main cause of the problem. It touches the front bottom teeth, causes root exposure and increased sensitivity of teeth to many environmental factors. Dr. Dimitris N. Tatakis, a study leader, says: “What you have is basically mechanical trauma hitting the gums.” Specialists found this issue to be quite serious as the number of teenager who go though lip piercing procedure increases. Dr. Tatakis says that this is a kind of dental problem which definitely can not be solved by usual dental care procedures like brushing, flossing and so on. There is no other way to prevent the problem but removing the piercing stud from the lip once and forever.