What is Teeth Grinding (Bruxism): Symptoms, Causes & Treatment Options
What is Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)?
Teeth grinding, alternatively called bruxism, causes you to grind or clench your teeth. If you have bruxism, you might subconsciously clench your teeth when awake or grind and clench your teeth when sleeping. Millions of Americans have bruxism but don’t realize the condition is not about stress and is a symptom of a sleep-related disorder. Bruxism causes damage to the teeth, needing restorations from the dentist to restore teeth to their former positions.
What are the Symptoms of Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)?
The indicators and symptoms of bruxism include the following:
- Teeth grinding or clenching loudly to awaken you or your bed partner.
- You might have flattened, fractured, chipped, or loose teeth.
- Enamel erosion exposing the interior layers of your tooth might also affect you.
- You experience enhanced tooth pain and sensitivity.
- Having tight or tired jaw muscles or a jaw lock preventing you from opening and closing your mouth.
- You experience face, jaw, and pain or soreness.
- Having a dull headache emanating from the temples or earaches without any problems in the ear.
- You might have damage by chewing on the inside of your cheek and sleep disruption.
If the symptoms described bother you, seeking bruxism treatment near you is a better option than sustaining severe damage to your teeth and affecting your quality of life. However, if the problem affects your child, mention it to their pediatric dentist during their next dental appointment.
Causes of Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
The medical fraternity finds it challenging to determine the precise reasons for bruxism. However, they believe it might be due to combining physical, psychological, and genetic factors:
- You might grind your teeth when awake from emotions like anxiety, stress, anger, frustration, et cetera. Alternatively, it might be a strategy to cope with matters or concentrate intensely.
- Sleep bruxism is a sleep-related chewing activity linked to arousal when sleeping.
- Some elements mentioned are some risk factors of bruxism. They are stress, age, medications, addictive substances, genetic conditions, and disorders like Parkinson’s, dementia, epilepsy, sleep apnea, and ADHD.
Complications of Teeth Grinding
Bruxism doesn’t cause severe complications. However, if you have severe bruxism, the condition might result in damage to your teeth, jaw, and restorations like dental crowns, et cetera, tension-type headaches, severe facial or jaw pain, and TMJ disorders in front of your ears feeling like clicking sounds when opening and closing your mouth.
Treatment Options for Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
During routine dental exams, your dentist will likely evaluate your teeth for indicators of bruxism. If you display any signs, the professional will look for alterations in your teeth and mouth over several visits to determine whether the condition is progressive and whether you need treatment.
If the dentist suspects bruxism, they try to determine its cause by inquiring about your dental health, medicines, daily routines, and sleep patterns. To assess the severity of bruxism, your dentist might check for tenderness in jaw muscles and apparent dental abnormalities like broken or missing teeth and other damage to your teeth, including the underlying bone, with help from x-rays. In addition, they may conduct exams to detect other issues like TMJ disorders or health conditions.
If the dentist suspects bruxism might be a sleep-related issue, they might refer you to a sleep medicine specialist to determine whether the episodes of teeth grinding are related to sleep apnea or other sleep disorders. If your teeth grinding results from psychological issues, you might receive a referral to a therapist or counselor for advice.
Treatment Options for Teeth Grinding (Bruxism)
Treatment for bruxism isn’t necessary in most cases because many children outgrow their teeth grinding without treatment. Similarly, many adults who don’t grind or clench their teeth severely don’t require therapy. However, in case of severe bruxism, our dentist in La Marque, TX 77568 recommends various dental approaches and therapies besides medicines to prevent damage and relieve jaw pain and discomfort.
Dental approaches for treating teeth grinding include:
- Splints and mouthguards are designed to keep your teeth separated to avoid damage caused by grinding and clenching. The appliances are fabricated from hard acrylic or soft materials and fit over your upper and lower teeth.
- Dental Correction: in severe bruxism cases, if tooth wear causes sensitivity or poses challenges when chewing, the dentist might recommend reshaping the chewing surfaces or using dental crowns to restore the damage.
- Stress or anxiety management also helps prevent the problem by promoting relaxation via meditation.
- Behavior change can also help if you practice proper mouth and jaw position. Your dentist can demonstrate the best position for your mouth and jaw.
- Medications: generally, drugs aren’t effective in treating bruxism. However, dentists suggest muscle relaxants, Botox injections, and medications for anxiety and stress.
- Lifestyle And Home Remedies: you can listen to music or take a warm bath to help people relax and reduce your risk of developing bruxism. Avoiding stimulating drinks like alcohol in the evening and caffeinated beverages after dinner help because they worsen teeth grinding.
If you think you have bruxism and are damaging your teeth by grinding them, you must prepare to discuss the issue with your dentist to ensure the problem doesn’t aggravate to create severe damage to your teeth and mouth. Although bruxism disappears by itself, it doesn’t harm you to receive treatment for the damage it can create when affecting you.
Get Bruxism Treatment Near You
We at South Star Dental provide effective treatment for teeth grinding after evaluating your teeth and mouth. If you think the symptoms described earlier affect you, kindly consult with our practice to receive teeth-grinding treatment in La Marque, TX before the condition causes severe damage to your teeth.