If you grind your teeth or clench on a nightly basis, this is known as bruxism and could damage your smile. To avoid complications with your oral health, you could benefit from a bruxism appliance. In today’s blog, your Lake Orion, MI, dentist talks about creating bruxism appliances to stop your chronic teeth grinding.
The Warning Signs of Teeth Grinding
How do you know if you suffer from bruxism? For some, a significant other could alert them to their grinding episodes. There are also warning signs to watch for during waking hours, such as jaw pain, headaches and migraines, aches in the neck and shoulders, and tooth sensitivity and toothaches. When you have persistent pain in and around your mouth, let us know right away so we can conduct a diagnosis and find out if you need treatment.
Causes and Complications
Bruxism could be due to high levels of stress in your daily life, or issues with the balance of your bite, such as tooth loss, misalignment, injury to the face or jaw, or complications with the growth of the jaw or eruption of the teeth. Without treatment, the grinding episodes could wear down teeth, making them look short and uneven, and could also crack and chip them. This then exposes sensitive inner structure to harmful oral bacteria, allowing tooth decay and infection to develop that further threatens your smile’s stability. Our team can carefully examine your smile to choose the most appropriate treatment option!
Oral Appliance Therapy
For some, we could offer relief with orthodontics to correct misalignment or with prosthetics to address missing teeth. Dental bonding and custom crowns could also help by improving overall bite balance. But the most common treatment option is an oral appliance. The device is custom-fitted based on detailed digital images we take of your smile. It then fits like a mouthguard and is worn as you sleep. The device then repositions the jaw to ease strain on your smile and places a barrier between the upper and lower sets of teeth to prevent further damage. The device is also easy to clean and store when not in use.
If you have any questions about the cause and symptoms of bruxism, or if you need treatment for your teeth grinding episodes, then please reach out to our team today. We’re ready to help you enjoy good oral health and a comfortable smile, and we can use treatments like bonding and crowns to repair any damage that has occurred since you started grinding your teeth!
Schedule a Visit for Oral Appliance Therapy
Our team wants to help you enjoy treatment to save your teeth and prevent damage and discomfort. Contact Lake Orion Family Dentistry in Lake Orion, MI by calling 248-693-6213 to learn more and to schedule a visit for a custom oral appliance.
