A New Threat to Adolescent Oral Health: The Grill

The wearing of dental “grills” in the mouths of children, adolescents, and adults is a problematic fad currently facing the dental community. A grill is a gold, platinum, or other metal and often jewel-encrusted encasement for the dentition. The grill can be easily placed over the existing teeth and is fabricated by simply obtaining an impression of an area of a person's mouth over which a grill is desired. The purpose of this case study was to report the oral and dental manifestations of a case in which a grill was worn by an uninformed adolescent consumer. A 16-year-old African American male was clinically evaluated on a routine recall appointment in this case. He had evidence of new rampant anterior decay in an oral cavity that had previously been caries-free on all earlier regular hygiene visits. A strong factor contributing to decay was the purchase and regular wear of a grill from a neighborhood jewelry store. This case report was conducted to alert dental professionals, more specifically pediatric dentists, about the increased popularity of the grill and to the detrimental affects that it can have upon the unhygienic dentition.