What Your Dentist Doesn’t Know Can Keep You in Pain for Years
Over one million people in the USA alone wake up each morning in pain from nighttime teeth grinding and clenching (bruxism). You might think that these people remaining in pain means they don’t have dentists. Actually most of them have dentists. Unfortunately, while the typical dentist is an expert at preventing tooth damage and repairing damaged teeth, the typical dentist is taught little or nothing in dental school about the psychology of habits, and long-term teeth grinding and clenching is a habit most people would very much like to kick.
So what does it take to kick the habit of tooth grinding and clenching? As you might suspect from thinking about other habits (such as smoking, over-eating, drinking, or nail biting), the answer is different for different people. The “solution” that most dentists currently recommend is a custom-made mouth guard.
There are many variations of the custom mouth guards that dentists recommend, most costing between $500 and $800. Different dentists disagree strongly on which is the “best” type of mouth guard to use. Some are thin plastic, made by vacuum-molding a hot thin sheet of plastic over a plaster replica of your upper teeth. Some are hard plastic cast in a mold made from an impression of both your upper and lower teeth.
Lots of people follow their dentist’s recommendation and spend between $500 and $800 for a custom-made mouth guard. Once you have spent your money, you get to find out if you are someone whose nighttime clenching gets worse or better when you wear your new mouth guard.
“Now just a minute” you might say, “are you telling me my clenching problem could actually get worse?” Yes, unfortunately it could. The problem is that although mouth guards keep your tooth enamel from being worn away, they don’t necessarily make you clench less. Some people’s teeth grinding and clenching habit is such that when they are asleep, a mouth guard feels like an annoyance to be chewed through rather than a reminder to relax.
Many mouth guards fit between your upper and lower molars, and spread the load if you clench your teeth. The load spreading is supposed to help you do less damage if you clench. Sometimes this works OK. Other times the damage done is much worse with a mouth guard.
Some brands of mouth guards (for instance the “NTI”) are made to snap on to your front teeth and keep your molars from touching when you bite. The theory here is that such a front-teeth mouth guard will feel so different when you bite on it that your mind will know (even subconsciously) that something is not right when you bite, so you will not bite down hard. There are cases where that seems to work. Unfortunately, for the cases where it does not work, biting down on a front-tooth-only guard such as the NTI can cause serious damage.
Fortunately, there are many ways to kick the teeth grinding and clenching habit other than sticking a mouth guard in your mouth. Some methods don’t cost anything to try, some are moderately expensive to try, and some can be rather expensive to try. In some cases the cost is less of an issue because of a money-back guarantee, but unfortunately some of the expensive things to try have no such guarantee. Different methods that people have successfully used to get themselves out of the teeth grinding and clenching habit include: massage, diet changes, biofeedback, hypnosis, changing to a new pillow or mattress pad, using a soothing sound machine, chiropractic work, meditation, and other positive psychology practices.
Interestingly, the mouth guards sold by dentists are not only among the most expensive possible solutions you can try for teeth grinding and clenching, they are also among the options with no free trial, and no guarantee whatsoever. This is a great deal for your dentist, but not a great deal for you. Trying an over-the-counter mouth guard from a pharmacy that you can mold yourself may be a better first step.