Wearing a teeth grinding guard can better ensure your healthy smile lasts you a lifetime.
Do you wake up at night with your jaw and temples hurting, your teeth and jaw muscles sore, and frequent headaches and earaches without an idea for the cause? Maybe your snoring doesn’t just disturb your partner’s sleep but yours as well. These issues are signs that you have a habit of grinding and clenching your teeth and jaws in your sleep. Some people grind their teeth every night, while others only do it every couple of days. However, no matter how often this bad habit is, it can still take a toll on your smile over time.
Nighttime dental guards are great because they can prevent three frustrating but often forgotten dental problems during your sleep: bruxism, TMJ, and sleep apnea. Depending on which issue you have specifically, the mouth guard your dentist prescribes you may change. They’re also most effective when you have a custom fit since no two mouths are exactly alike. While store-bought, generic appliances can still keep the strain off of your smile, they won’t work as well or last as long as one that’s been molded to your mouth.
Bruxism
A nighttime mouth guard is most often used for patients with bruxism. Bruxism is the chronic grinding and clenching of your teeth, and it is prevalent at night when patients can’t control their jaw. While this may seem relatively harmless, bruxism gradually wears down the teeth’s enamel. As the enamel grows thinner, your teeth become sensitive to hot, cold, and sugary foods, and they become more vulnerable to damage and dental decay. It takes less time for cavities to form as plaque bacteria can quickly make their way through the enamel to the sensitive inner tissues below.
Several factors can lead to bruxism:
Stress. Emotional stress and anxiety are the leading causes of teeth grinding during the daytime, which can carry over into your sleeping habits.
Age. Children are more likely to have bruxism than adults, and many eventually grow out of it.
Malocclusions. Crooked teeth and misaligned jaws can prevent your teeth and jaws from meeting where and how they should.
Genetics. Bruxism often runs in the family, so you’re more likely to develop it if you have relatives who already have it.
Other factors. Links have also been found between bruxism and other factors like alcohol, smoking, epilepsy, night terrors, Parkinson’s disease, and more.
Can you crack a tooth from grinding? Unfortunately, yes. This uneven and uncontrolled bite force can be powerful enough to fracture or chip their tooth while asleep. Patients have often told us that they have woken up during the night due to a loud cracking noise or radiating tooth pain. A cracked or broken tooth can be a dental emergency if the damage runs deep enough. The enamel itself is hardy and unfeeling, but the layers below it protects are softer and more sensitive. The central dental pulp, in particular, is the heart of the tooth because it contains the blood vessels and nerves. If severe enough, damage to the pulp can put your tooth’s life at risk.
If a crack isn’t visible, it can still be dangerous for your tooth. Hairline fractures can extend deep, possibly reaching the roots submerged below the gum line. They also put your tooth at risk for further injuries, including major chips and breaks. You might not see these harder to spot dental fractures, but you can still feel their effects:
Sensitivity to hot and cold
Lingering sensitivity to sweets
Tooth pain when biting down
Swollen and bleeding gums
Toothaches that seem to come and go
Even shallow dental injuries that don’t extend past the enamel make your tooth vulnerable to decay, often speeding up the cavity timeline by months. With an infected tooth, you should keep your eyes out for these additional symptoms:
Visible pit in the tooth
White or discolored tooth spots
Chronic bad breath (halitosis)
Your dentist may recommend that you start wearing a dental guard before you go to bed. Night guards don’t stop these nighttime habits of teeth grinding and clenching, but they prevent them from being so hazardous to your oral health. They are designed to put some space between your teeth, cushioning the jaws’ pressure on your teeth while asleep.
Unfortunately, a night guard can’t prevent damage that already exists. If you have a minor chipped or cracked tooth, you might not need to fix the tooth—though you can use dental bonding or veneers to repair your smile’s look. More significant and painful damage will require more serious restoration, like a dental filling or crown. If the central dental pulp is injured, you will need a root canal.
TMJ
The same mouth guard used for preventing bruxism can help with TMJ, too. TMJ, or TMD, is short for temporomandibular joint dysfunction. It appears when the sliding disk joint connecting your upper and lower jaws develops problems, such as joint erosion, misalignment, or muscle pain. Nighttime bruxism is often a cause, but several other factors can contribute to patients’ TMJ—arthritis, misaligned teeth and jaws, jaw injuries, stress, and more.
While bruxism and cracked teeth can often hide in plain sight, TMJ quickly makes itself known to you. TMJ symptoms are often painful, and they can significantly interfere with your daily life:
Clicking and popping when opening and closing your mouth
Jaw pain and stiffness
Difficulty or pain when eating or speaking
Chronic headaches and earaches
Pain in the neck and face
Jaw locking in place
Jaws no longer fitting well together
Difficulty or inability to open your mouth
Can you have TMJ on one side only? Patients only experience TMJ symptoms on one side of their face. In some cases, this can happen because only one of their two jaw joints is damaged or misaligned. However, it’s more likely both sides of your jaw are affected; they just haven’t started showing the signs yet. Your jaw joints should rest in a delicate balance as they work with each other to make moving your lower jaw possible. If you only have jaw pain and tenderness on one side, you shouldn’t be surprised if those symptoms spread over time to the other side too.
While TMD can be felt throughout the day, you may notice that it’s worse at night. It might even be painful enough to wake you up. How should I sleep with TMJ? If your dentist recommends it, you should wear a mouth guard for TMJ at night. Oral splints and guards are the most popular non-surgical TMJ treatment. Similarly to bruxism, preventing your nightly teeth grinding and clenching eases up the strain put on your jaw. Over time, this can allow your jaw and joints to heal and recover.
We also suggest changing the way you sleep at night to take off even more stress on your jaw joints. Your sleeping position can also affect your dysfunction and symptoms’ severity. We recommend sleeping on your back if you can. It may take some getting used to at first, but it’s the best way to keep your head in line with your back without putting pressure on your face or jaw. Try not to sleep on your stomach as it stresses your jaw and joints when you press your face into your pillow. Lying on your side also causes trouble if your head is out of alignment with your neck.
Sleep Apnea
Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder where your breather temporarily stops for bits and starts, often because the tongue and throat relax enough to block the airways. These brief pauses often lead to restless sleeping, snoring, and mouth breathing. Sleep apnea might not seem dangerous, but it can have a significant impact on your health and mental well-being over time. For example, patients with sleep apnea have an increased risk for:
Depression
Diabetes
High blood pressure
Heart disease
Acid reflux
Liver problems
Adult asthma
What age does sleep apnea occur? While sleep apnea can appear at any age, it is prevalent in children, especially those with large tonsils. Parents should help treat their kids’ sleep apnea as soon as possible. Their troubled sleeping can lead to poor school performance, behavioral problems, hyperactivity, bedwetting, night terrors, and sleepwalking.
Most people think of CPAP machines as the only sleep apnea treatment. However, CPAPs can be uncomfortable for some to wear throughout the night. For these patients and those who only have mild sleep apnea, wearing a night guard can help open up the airways to prevent frequent pauses and stops in their breathing. Sleep apnea dental guards are different than those used for bruxism and TMJ. They don’t just cover your teeth to prevent your teeth from touching and grinding against each other. They instead push the tongue and bottom jaw forward or hold the tongue in place to make it easier for you to breathe easier and deeper throughout the night.
