Bruxism

Bruxism happens when you involuntarily clench your teeth or grind your teeth together. This results in damage to the teeth and other health problems.

The causes of bruxism are not completely clear. You can do it during the daytime or during your sleep. Sleep-related bruxism is more of a problem because you cannot control it as easily as daytime bruxism.

There are several factors that go into getting bruxism or not getting bruxism. If you are under a lot of stress, you can get the disease. If you have misaligned teeth, you can have bruxism to a greater degree. Your posture affects getting the disease as well as your ability to relax. Your sleeping habits and diet all affect the onset of bruxism.

The symptoms of bruxism include getting temporomandibular joint disease or TMJ. This is damage to the joint that closes the jaw, located in the upper lateral cheek area. Your teeth can be ground down or broken. The grinding can affect the sleep of the sleeping partners.

Symptoms that can be related to bruxism are anxiety, stress or depression, an earache from TMJ disease, eating disorders, sensitivity of the teeth, headache, sore jaw, and insomnia.

Doctors can do a complete history and physical examination in order to identify bruxism. The dentist can find disorders of the dentition, ear disorders like ear infections, tenderness of the temporomandibular joint, and enlargement of the temporomandibular joint. The doctor may not a big history of stress, tension and depression in your life.

Treatment of bruxism intends to reduce pain, prevent permanent damage to your teeth and to reduce clenching of the teeth as much as you are able to. There are many things you can do to reduce pain. You can apply heat or ice to the sore area of the jaw muscles. These can relax the muscles, too. You need to get enough sleep and avoid eating hard foods that exacerbate the pain. This includes nuts, candies and meats like steak. Instead drink a lot of water each day. You should learn physical therapy exercises that stretch the muscles and restore balance to the muscles of the jaw. Massaging the muscles on the side of the neck and shoulders helps, as well as massage to the face. You can use biofeedback to learn how to relax the facial muscles and to make relaxation of the face habitual. You should reduce the stress you face every day.

In order to prevent much tooth damage, they make mouth guards or splints and appliances that have been in use since the 1930s that prevent teeth grinding, clenching of the teeth and disorders of the TMJ. The splint can keep the pressure off the teeth so they don't break or grind together. Some people clench their teeth worse with a splint so you need to pay attention to that. Some people stop grinding their teeth while using a splint but go right back to grinding their teeth as soon as they stop wearing the splint. Sometimes the effectiveness of the splint wears off.

The splint types are those that fit over the upper teeth and splints that fit over the lower teeth. They may be designed to relax the jaw or just keep the teeth apart. You can wear a splint that just fits over the front teeth so that the back teeth are naturally held apart from one another. It is called the NTI splint.

Orthodontists can change the bite of the individual through braces. This fixes misalignment so that the grinding of bruxism stops. Surgery on the teeth is a last resort type of item. Relaxing and modifying your daytime activities works just as well in most cases so that the individual doesn't have daytime bruxism.