Night Grinding or Bruxism
It is not fully understood why people grind their teeth at night, but some suggest the reason for the uncontrolled habit could be related to factors involving stress, alcohol consumption, abnormal bite, crooked or missing teeth.
Night Grinding can cause the following symptoms :
- Earaches
- Headaches
- Jaw Joint (TMJ) disorders
- Pain along the jaw
- Temporomandibular disorder(TMD)
- Cracked tooth syndrome
- Hypersensitive teeth
- Wear facets or attrition on teeth
- Loosen already weak teeth
It causes severe mental and physical strains on some people and some even have constant facial pain.
If you are aware of this habit, book a consult with us and we will assess the severity of the same. Some cases of joint disorders needs to be referred to a TMJ (Temporo-mandibular Joint) specialist.
Mild cases can be calmed down by addressing the habit straight. For that we can fabricate an appliance called OCCLUSAL SPLINT which is like a custom made mouth guard but not as bulky. It sometimes saves lots of money by preventing further damage to your remaining unaffected teeth which would have ended up in costly restorative measures such as root canal treatment, dental implants and some cases crown & bridges.
Other measures to be tried out include regular exercise routine, stress counselling or lowering your caffeine intake to try and determine the underlying cause.