Do people's teeth shift as they get older?

Hm, I believe so.

Yes, they can. Especially if you had orthodonture as a child. But you may hve root absorption, or if you lose teeth, you may have room, or you may have bone loss in the jaw bone, which gets worse with poor dental health.

Check with your dentist if you are wondering.

Yes. Once they start shifting a little, then they can shift a lot, because teeth sort of keep each other in line. My teeth are shifting a ton the last few months, because I had a bad bond repair, long story, and my bite is off and now everything is shifting. It’s awful, I have let things get bad because I could not fathom going to another dentist. Now I will probably need orthodonture work. All from a simple bond repair.

I’ll send this to our dentist jelly.

@JLeslie Invisilign may be the way to go. Mine have shifted a bit and I may do this.

Yep.

Actually, I went to my old orthodontist and he recommended Invisilign (my teeth shifted after I got rid of my retainer). It won’t be cheap, but what I need to have done won’t take all that long. A year. So, probably 3 grand.

@Mama_Cakes I probably will do invisilign, but that is a lot to pay (time and money) when I didn’t need them if the dentist had just done the repair correctly. He made my tooth too thick, and inadvertantely filed down my tooth next to it. It is my front upper tooth, and now food constantly gets caught between my front two teeth, which for obviously reasons sucks, this was never a problem until that repair was done, starting the very day it was done. This is an old bond from elementary school that had chipped a little itty bit. I’m so annoyed, but with all my medical history, I just don’t have the psychological strength many times to fight with medical professionals or go back to a third and fourth doctor right away to get something fixed. I did see a second dentist who made it better, but also filed down good tooth because when I said the bottom of my tooth she started filing near my gum line, and to me bottom of my top teeth is the part of my tooth that is closer to my feet when I am standing upright. Ugh. I guess technically to a dentist the bottom is near the gums, but they must have patients describe it wrong all the time, they should know. I also had said where the repair is it is too thick, which means the end of the tooth where the repair is. Oy. It drives me crazy, I can’t handle anything. Sorry for the rant. The whole side of my mouth ached for a month as the entire set of my upper teeth on the left have shifted and the tooth that is too thick in front has shifted out.

Even without orthodontics, teeth shift and move all the time, according to my dental technician.

I can tell by the spaces when I floss. They seem to be slightly different than in earlier decades.

If we all died at 35, as we were supposed to do, we would not have these problems.

(If I had been born before 1000AD and the invention of glasses, I would have walked off a cliff or into the mouth of a saber tooth tiger any time after my 9th birthday.)

Yes. However, I have a set of hard plastic retainers. I wore them the other day and could feel how tight it was….but at least I got it on and I’m going to start wearing them so they shift my teeth back.

Or died of illness. Or of a birth defect, like what I had….Hip displacia (sp).

If it wasn’t for modern medicine I would be crippled, almost blind and had a mouthful of REALLY knarly crooked teeth. I’m sure I would have been viewed as mentally lacking just because of my appearance. But thanks to pillow splints, braces, and Lasik…. So take a look at me nooowwwww!!! Or I should say ‘then’...that pic in my avatar was from 1995. But ‘then’ doesn’t go with the song. See.

Mine certainly have.

I wouldn’t say shift. But they do straighten, until old age that is. By then they’ll be all over the place.

? Mine are slowly drifting back to pre-braces position…which is far from straight.

Its called ‘mesial shift’ and they do. That’s why you see so many elderly people with jumbled teeth. Anybody that’s had braces (especially as an adult) must wear retainers for life to keep the teeth positioned.