If you have sustained serious damage due to teeth grinding, you need treatment to stop your bruxism and also repair your teeth. Otherwise, you could develop painful symptoms and risk tooth loss. In today’s blog, your Lake Orion, MI, dentist talks about how we diagnose and treat bruxism, and offer lifelike repair for your smile.
The Causes of Teeth Grinding
Bruxism could develop due to factors like high stress levels in your daily life, or even an untreated case of TMJ disorder. Other factors could include issues that upset bite balance, such as tooth loss, injury, misalignment, or complications with the growth and development of your jaw and oral structures. When the disorder occurs, you grind and clench your teeth on a nightly basis, which places serious pressures on your smile. This could wear down outer enamel or even crack or chip the teeth.
The Impact of Damage
Your teeth could appear short or uneven, and the damage could leave your teeth vulnerable to tooth decay and dental infection, so painful symptoms arise, as does the risk of tooth loss too. Don’t ignore symptoms when they arise, such as tooth sensitivity and toothaches, jaw and facial pain, earaches and headaches, and pain when you bite down or chew. If your significant other reports that you grind your teeth at night, let us know right away. We can carefully examine your smile with digital imaging systems to assess wear and friction on your teeth, and choose the most appropriate treatment option.
Help with an Oral Appliance
For some, we could use orthodontics to correct misalignment, or crowns and/or bonding to improve overall bite imbalance and to repair damage. We could replace missing teeth with prosthetics too, such as bridges or a dental implant. But the most common option is an oral appliance, one designed based on detailed digital images and measurements we take of your smile. The custom oral appliance will look and fit like a mouthguard, and is worn as you sleep. It repositions the jaw to ease stress and strain on the jaw joints, and puts a barrier between the upper and lower sets of teeth to prevent further damage to your smile.
If you have any questions about how we diagnose and treat issues like bruxism, or about oral appliance therapy in particular, then please reach out to our team today. There is still time to see us before the year ends and your 2023 dental insurance benefits and health savings account funds expire, so talk to our team today.
Schedule a Visit to Treat Teeth Grinding
Our team wants to help treat the underlying issues and repair any dental damage. Learn more about treating teeth grinding and clenching with our team today at Lake Orion Family Dentistry at (248)693-6213!
