She Chewed Ice Every Single Day. What Her Doctor Found Will Make You Call Yours.
Dentists call it a habit. Doctors call it a clue.
You've seen it. Maybe you've done it. The drink is finished, the straw is making that noise, and then it starts: crunch, crunch, crunch.
Most people think chewing ice is harmless. A little habit. Something to do with your hands and your mouth while the show is on.
Doctors have a different word for it, and the word is a clue.
1. Your dentist already knows
Let's get the boring one out of the way first. Ice is hard. Teeth are hard. When two hard things meet all day, one of them chips, and it is never the ice.
Cracked enamel. Loosened fillings. That one tooth that suddenly hates cold drinks. Every dentist in the country is nodding right now.
But that's not the part that should make you pick up the phone.
2. The part that should make you pick up the phone
Craving things that are not food has a medical name: pica. Craving ice specifically has its own name, pagophagia, and it is one of the better-known signs of iron deficiency.
Nobody fully agrees on why. Some think the cold wakes up a tired brain. What they do agree on is this: a woman who suddenly wants to chew ice all day should have her iron looked at.
It is not "a weird thing you do." It is a thing your body might be trying to tell you.
3. The good news (there is good news)
This is one of the easiest things in medicine to check. It's a routine blood test. You've had a dozen of them. And if your iron is low, that is treatable, and the treatment is usually not dramatic.
4. What NOT to do
Do not read this article and then buy a bottle of iron pills from the internet. Too much iron is its own problem, and the right amount for you is the amount your doctor says after looking at your results, not the amount a website says after looking at your credit card.
So finish the drink. Leave the ice. Make the call.