Military service takes a toll on the body in ways that aren’t always visible. The oral health effects are among the least discussed — but they’re common, and in many cases, they’re treatable.
This isn’t a checklist of things to feel anxious about. It’s a practical look at the patterns we see in veteran patients at Sunny Dental Buderim, and what options exist to address them. Knowing what to look for means you can act earlier, when options are broader and treatment is simpler.
Deferred Care: The Most Common Issue
The single most common dental pattern we see in veterans is deferred care — sometimes years of it.
Regular dental check-ups tend to fall away during active service. Access to civilian dental care is limited when you’re posted or deployed. Dental problems that would ordinarily be caught at a six-month check-up have time to progress. By the time many veterans settle in one place and think about their teeth, what started as minor decay has become something more significant.
This is not a personal failure. It’s a predictable consequence of how military life is structured. Dr Louis George, who served in the Royal Navy before moving to Australia 16 years ago, and Dr Jeremy Collins, a former Australian Army dentist, have both seen this pattern — in their own colleagues during service, and now in their patients at Sunny Dental Buderim.
What Deferred Care Looks Like Clinically
When someone hasn’t had dental care for several years, a first examination often reveals:
Advanced decay. Cavities that might have been simple fillings when they started have deepened toward the nerve. The treatment options change significantly once decay reaches that depth — root canal treatment rather than a simple restoration, or in some cases extraction.
Gum disease. Periodontal disease is a slow, largely painless condition. Without regular professional cleans, tartar (calcified plaque) builds up below the gum line, causing chronic inflammation, bone loss, and eventually tooth loss. By the time most people notice something is wrong, significant damage has occurred.
Cracked or broken teeth. Teeth that have large old fillings, or that have been ground over years, can crack — sometimes dramatically, sometimes in ways that aren’t obvious until they’re investigated. Cracked teeth that are caught early can often be saved with a crown. Left too long, the crack extends below the gum and the tooth can’t be saved.
Missing teeth and bone loss. When a tooth is lost and not replaced, the bone that previously supported it begins to resorb (shrink). This affects the stability of adjacent teeth over time and can make tooth replacement with implants more complex.
The Good News
Deferred care is not irreversible. The vast majority of dental problems that develop from years of missed care are treatable. Treatment may be more involved than if problems had been caught earlier — but the options are often there.
The sooner you come in, the more options you have.
Tooth Grinding and Clenching (Bruxism)
Bruxism — the involuntary grinding and clenching of teeth — is more common among veterans than in the general population. It’s closely associated with elevated stress, hypervigilance, and difficulty sleeping, all of which are common in people who’ve experienced the demands of military service.
Most grinding happens at night, while you’re asleep, which means many people aren’t aware they’re doing it. Partners often notice it before the person themselves does.
How to Know If You’re Grinding
Signs include:
- Jaw pain or headaches on waking
- Worn, flattened, or chipped teeth
- Increased tooth sensitivity (worn enamel exposes the underlying dentine)
- Tight or sore jaw muscles, particularly in the morning
- A partner reporting that they can hear grinding at night
Your dentist can identify the characteristic wear patterns on your teeth during an examination, even if you’re not aware of any symptoms.
What Bruxism Does to Your Teeth
Over time, grinding wears down the biting surfaces of your teeth. In moderate cases, this causes sensitivity and cosmetic changes. In severe cases, it can wear teeth to stubs, crack them, or lead to jaw joint (TMJ) problems.
The damage accumulates slowly over years, which is why it often isn’t noticed until it’s quite significant.
What Can Be Done
A custom-fitted nightguard (occlusal splint) is the standard first response. It’s a hard acrylic device that fits over your teeth while you sleep, absorbing the grinding forces and protecting the enamel. It doesn’t stop grinding, but it dramatically reduces the damage.
If teeth have already been significantly worn down, restorative treatment may be needed to rebuild them — depending on the degree of wear, this could range from composite restorations to crowns. Dr Jeremy, whose clinical background includes crowns and bridges, sees bruxism-related wear regularly in veteran patients and can assess the best approach to restoring what’s been lost.
Managing the underlying causes — stress, sleep disruption — is also part of the picture, though that’s a conversation for your GP and other treating practitioners rather than your dentist.
Dry Mouth From Medications
Saliva does far more than you might realise. It neutralises acids, remineralises enamel, washes food particles away from teeth, and contains antibacterial compounds that help control the bugs in your mouth.
Without adequate saliva, tooth decay rates increase significantly and rapidly. This is not a slow process — veterans on medications that cause dry mouth can develop multiple new cavities within a relatively short time.
Common Medications That Cause Dry Mouth
Many of the medications commonly prescribed for conditions that veterans experience have dry mouth as a side effect:
- Antidepressants and antianxiety medications — SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics
- Antipsychotics
- Sleep medications
- Certain blood pressure medications
- Opioid pain medications
- Some antihistamines and decongestants
If you’re on any of these and haven’t mentioned it to your dentist, it’s worth bringing up. Your dental care plan should account for it.
Managing Dry Mouth
A few practical measures help:
- Stay well hydrated — sip water regularly throughout the day
- Avoid alcohol and alcohol-containing mouthwashes, which worsen dryness
- Avoid caffeine and tobacco, which both reduce saliva flow
- Sugar-free gum or lozenges can stimulate saliva production
- Saliva substitute products are available over the counter
- Some prescription medications for dry mouth exist — your GP can advise
From a dental perspective, more frequent check-ups (three to four times per year rather than twice) may be appropriate if you have significant medication-related dry mouth. More regular professional cleans and fluoride treatments can help offset the increased decay risk.
Dental Trauma From Service
Some veterans have experienced direct dental trauma during service — facial injuries, combat-related incidents, accidents during training or operations.
The dental effects vary depending on the nature of the injury:
Fractured teeth. Trauma can chip, crack, or shatter teeth. Old trauma injuries that weren’t fully addressed at the time can continue to cause problems years later — a tooth that absorbed a significant impact may eventually die, become infected, or crack further.
Tooth loss. Missing teeth from trauma, if not replaced, lead to bone loss and shifting of adjacent teeth over time. If you lost teeth during service and they haven’t been replaced, it’s worth discussing the options.
Jaw injuries. Fractures, dislocations, or soft tissue injuries to the jaw can affect bite, jaw joint function, and the supporting structures of the teeth. These can have long-term dental implications that a specialist assessment can address.
Root damage. Sometimes trauma damages a tooth at the root level without obvious visible damage. The tooth may look intact but slowly die over months or years, eventually presenting as an infection or abscess.
If you have a history of dental trauma and haven’t had it fully assessed since, mention it during your examination. A thorough clinical and radiographic assessment can identify issues that haven’t yet become symptomatic.
Dental Anxiety
Dental anxiety in veterans deserves an honest discussion.
It’s more common than many veterans admit, partly because it doesn’t fit the self-image of someone who has functioned in demanding environments. But clinical environments — particularly those involving loss of physical control, unexpected sensations, or close proximity of others — can trigger stress responses that have nothing to do with courage or toughness.
For some veterans, this is related to service experiences. For others, it predates service. Either way, it’s a real obstacle to receiving care.
What Dental Anxiety Looks Like
For some people, it’s general apprehension that makes them put off appointments. For others, it’s a physical response in the chair — elevated heart rate, sweating, difficulty staying still, the urge to get up and leave. In some cases, the anxiety is severe enough that prior attempts at dental care have been genuinely traumatic.
None of this is unusual. We’ve seen it many times.
Options at Sunny Dental Buderim
At Sunny Dental Buderim, we offer sedation dentistry for patients who need it. Our practice manager Dwi George is a registered nurse — which is the legal requirement for providing sedation in a private dental practice in Queensland.
Sedation for dentistry is typically conscious sedation — you’re relaxed and calm, you can still respond to the dentist, but the experience is dramatically less distressing. Anxious patients often describe it as feeling as though the appointment went by in minutes.
Sedation also allows more treatment to be completed per appointment, which means fewer visits overall. For patients who’ve been avoiding care, this can be a more manageable path to getting their dental health back on track.
If anxiety is a factor for you, tell us when you book. We’ll have a conversation before the appointment about what sedation involves and whether it’s appropriate for your situation.
Missing Teeth and Full Mouth Rehabilitation
Some veterans, particularly those who’ve deferred care for many years or who’ve experienced dental trauma, present with multiple missing teeth. This affects eating, speaking, confidence, and — if left unaddressed — accelerates bone loss and creates further problems.
The options for replacing missing teeth include:
Dentures. Full or partial dentures can restore chewing function and appearance. For Gold Card holders, DVA covers clinically necessary denture treatment. Modern dentures are more comfortable and natural-looking than older designs.
Dental bridges. A bridge uses the teeth adjacent to a gap as supports for a fixed replacement tooth. This doesn’t require surgery but does involve preparing the adjacent teeth.
Dental implants. Implants replace individual teeth at the root level with a titanium post, over which a crown is placed. They look and function most like natural teeth. For Gold Card holders, implant treatment can be DVA-funded with prior approval.
For patients who need significant reconstruction across multiple teeth — a full mouth rehabilitation — we work with a comprehensive plan that addresses the full clinical picture rather than treating individual teeth in isolation.
Read more about dental implants →
Read more about full mouth rehabilitation →
When to Come In
If any of the following apply, it’s worth booking an appointment sooner rather than later:
- You haven’t seen a dentist in more than two years
- You have pain, sensitivity, or swelling anywhere in your mouth
- You’ve noticed changes in how your teeth look or feel
- You’re aware you grind your teeth and haven’t been assessed for it
- You’re on medications that cause dry mouth and haven’t discussed it with a dentist
- You have missing teeth that haven’t been replaced
- You have a history of dental trauma that hasn’t been fully assessed
None of these require an emergency call. But they do warrant attention — and the sooner the better.
Book an Appointment
At Sunny Dental Buderim, we see veterans from across the Sunshine Coast — from Maroochydore and Mooloolaba to Nambour and Palmwoods — and we’re familiar with the particular patterns that service creates. Dr Louis and Dr Jeremy have lived through military service themselves, which means they understand these issues not just clinically but personally. We’re DVA-registered for both Gold Card and White Card patients.
Call (07) 5445 8400 to book. Let us know you’re a DVA patient and whether there’s anything you’d like us to know before you come in. We’re ready for it.
Return to the Veterans & Defence dental care hub →
All dental treatments carry risks. Outcomes vary between individuals. The information on this page is general in nature and does not replace personalised advice from a registered dental practitioner. DVA entitlements are subject to eligibility criteria and policy conditions — confirm your specific coverage with DVA before commencing treatment.