Don’t drill your own teeth! And quashing other rotten dental advice on TikTok

Watch enough TikTok videos and you’re sure to see one extolling a special kind of do-it-yourself dentistry. Not about brushing and flossing, except maybe flossing with strands of your hair. These are videos on drilling into your teeth and cementing gems to them or filing your teeth to reshape them.

People have been styling their teeth for centuries across the globe throughout North and South America, Africa, and Asia. But social media — particularly TikTok, where everything old and new is nip/tucked into short videos with trendy sounds and served up fresh to young eyes — has breathed life into trends like tooth gems. Celebrities such as Drake, Rihanna, and Bella Hadid wore them years ago. Now, some TikTok influencers are selling DIY gem kits.

But it doesn’t stop there. There are DIY tooth replacement kits and bedazzled grills available online for under $25, and recipes for homemade toothpaste and whitening treatments. The TikTok hashtag #DIYdentist has 2.6 million views. It’s enough to make any licensed dentist or orthodontist cringe.

The professionals wholeheartedly agree that DIY dentistry is a very bad idea. Dental care can be expensive, and orthodontic treatment is usually considered cosmetic and not covered by dental insurance — which 65 million Americans don’t have. And, according to the 2020 “Annual Review of Public Health” report, people who are low-income, uninsured, members of racial minority groups, immigrants, or living in rural areas are more likely to have poor oral health.

So, is the high cost of dental treatment driving these viral trends among young people, or is it the lure of supposedly painless, instantly changed smiles?

Dr. Ruchi Sahota, a Fremont, California, dentist and spokesperson for the American Dental Association, said she can understand why patients want to try DIY dentistry at home. “I just don’t know how [they] could do it safely,” she said, especially altering the shape of their teeth. While filing teeth is something a dentist might do to smooth out imperfections or create space between teeth during treatment for braces, for instance, some people are doing it themselves to smooth away chips in teeth or create vampire-like fangs for aesthetic reasons. “When we practice dentistry, we do it with the background information of years of training, X-rays, and the experience that helps us decide when and how to do the treatment,” Sahota said.

Even tooth gems applied correctly with oral bonding materials are troublesome, she said, because they “are adding something to your teeth that will also attract bacteria. You’re increasing your risk of cavities, of gum infections. And you’re increasing your risk of chipped teeth, of inflammation inside your mouth.”

DIY prices are certainly part of the allure. On Amazon, a 25-piece tooth gem kit was selling for $12.99 from Tondiamo, a brand that also sells children’s earwax removal tools, waterproof adhesive bandages, and chainsaw chains. The kit comes with 10 rhinestones, a mini-LED keychain to cure the adhesive, four wooden sticks, five disposable applicator brushes, and five cotton rolls.

But no instructions.

Reviews on Amazon complained of the gems not sticking. Some suggested using nail glue — which is toxic and can damage tooth enamel. But among Amazon’s “frequently bought together” suggestions: a bottle of epoxy resin glue.

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