If you have ever had the painful and unexpected experience of suddenly biting the inside of your cheek while eating, you aren’t alone. It’s actually a very common occurrence that most of the time is perfectly natural and easily explainable.
It also can be incredibly frustrating, especially when you continue to accidentally bit the exact same spot over and over again. But once again, this is perfectly normal and usually nothing to worry about.
Eating Too Fast or While Distracted
Most of the time, cheek biting is caused by eating while distracted, eating too fast, or trying to chew a bite of food that is too large. In rare instances, cheek biting can have other causes such as TMJ disorder or a nervous or stress-related condition, but these are not that common.
The area you accidentally bit can be re-bitten when it becomes inflamed or when there is an injury to the skin. Fortunately, the mouth is one of the fastest areas of the body to heal, so it’s usually not a serious problem and doesn’t last very long.
Bitten cheeks can be irritated by certain foods, however. So when it happens, you may want to avoid things like spicy peppers or highly acidic foods like oranges or tomato juice.
Tamarac Dentist – Treatment Options
Most of the time, injuries caused to the cheek by biting are minor. While it can hurt a lot, there rarely is any bleeding.
The best treatment is time and being careful while you eat on that side of your mouth for a while.
If the injury is more serious, rinsing your mouth with salt water or non-alcohol mouthwash can help clean the wound after eating. Don’t use antibacterials that are for external use only, such as bacitracin.
Accidental bite cheeks may be annoying, but they are very common. And most of the time they will heal just fine all on their own.
