Post: #1

I've always grinded my teeth at night. For the last 5 years or so I have worn mouthguards at night. However I tend to go through them every 6-12 months. When I close my teeth my front teeth don't touch. But I have an overbite so its not bad now. At the rate I'm going I'm think 10-20 years I might need to get 11 or more capped teeth.

The dentist I have talked to just treat the grinding but nothing about what causes the grinding. Any ideas on how to stop grinding? I'd prefer not to have to have my teeth capped in the future.

Post: #2

I use a mouthguard too. I figured that would prevent future problems. Even if you don't resolve the underlying driver, as long as you keep using the mouthguards, your teeth will be fine, no?

Post: #3

Take Magnesium along with Epsom salt baths before bed. Also make sure your aerobic capacity is on point. Jaw muscles are all anaerobic.

Post: #4

Is this like tabata sprints daily to somehow wear out the grinding? Epsom salt baths sound nice. The trick with them is not to fall asleep in the bath!

Post: #5

No. Like 30-40 minutes of activity with your heart rate at 135-145 bpm.

If your body is to anaerobic you may clench your jaw in your sleep.

Post: #6

Midnitespecial that sounds insane. I'm all for it if it's effective in preventing the grinding of teeth. Do you have any information to back up that claim?

Post: #7

What kind of mouth guard are you using? Like a sports on you buy from a chemist and put in hot water?

If so, fuck that off.

Go to a dentist or an orthodontist. Get a hard plastic one made. They will probably give you a real thin one that you will smash through in about a year. But if you get a thick one, it will last a lot longer.

Post: #8

I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Post: #9

Just rock a pacifier when you go to bed. Sleep like a baby.

Post: #10

Just curious, how do you know if you are grinding your teeth? An ex of mine said I always used to grind my teeth in my sleep, but I havent heard the complaint from any girls since then. Is there a noticeable feeling in the morning after grinding your teeth through the night? Im actually not sure if I still do it or not

Post: #11

I have a hard plastic molded mouth guard that clips to my upper teeth made by the orthodonist. I used to have the one ones that slid on but they would fall off when I slept. I would grind through the old guards in about 6 months and they would chip where my teeth were and you could see the tooth marks. We recently tried a different material which last longer.

Post: #12

Yeah, when I get out of stressful situations. It always comes from extreme stress/danger.

Post: #13

(03-27-2014 02:15 AM)Vicious Wrote:  I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Damn that's pricey. I just use the $20 mouthguards from the pharmacy (not the sports mouthguards). Put in hot water, form to teeth and you're set.

Post: #14

(03-27-2014 08:17 AM)assman Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 02:15 AM)Vicious Wrote:  I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Damn that's pricey. I just use the $20 mouthguards from the pharmacy (not the sports mouthguards). Put in hot water, form to teeth and you're set.

A dentist actually recommended this to me.
They said there's no need to pay for the expensive one and just get the sports store mouth guard for a few $...

Post: #15

my dentist told me sports mouthguards will protect the teeth from wear, but it will not redistribute the force, so it will still wear down the gums

Post: #16

kbell, the teeth grinding is a manifestation of underlying stress and anxiety. If you can remove or at least reduce them, it will mostly go away.

You haven't posted in your CBT thread in a while -- have you been finding that book useful?

Are you using a 10,000 lux light box every morning to regularize your sleep and treat depression and anxiety?

Post: #17

I've had the teeth grinding since I was in elemantary school. Its has gotten worse over the years so stress probably has something to do with it. I do need to update that thread.

Post: #18

I also agree with Midnite's rec of taking some magnesium before you go to bed. You don't need to take bath with it although that's a great way to do it -- you can also get a magnesium oil spray and just lightly spray each leg a few times before you go to bed -- it's absorbed very well in that way. It could have a real effect so you should definitely try it.

Post: #19

KBell, some of the advice given so far may work for minor cases of teeth grinding and for temporary relief however they will not cure teeth grinding permanently. For someone who might have a medical condition such as bruxism (teeth grinding/clenching) or a closely associated disorder called TMJ (Temporomandibular Joint Disorder) a serious treatment program will be in order. Since you mentioned you have been suffering from elementary school days you most likely have a full fledged case of TMJ and not just typical Bruxism. TMJ or more properly known as TMD (Temporomandibular Joint Disorder) addresses a broad array of symptoms that may arise when the jaws, head and neck muscles, and teeth become unbalanced in relating to each other. Curing this will be a very long (and expensive) journey down the tunnel but there is light at the end of it.

Here's my story and I hope to help other's on these forums who have suffered from this disorder:

I had a stressful high school and even more stressful college years due to being somewhat unprepared to attend one of the toughest STEM schools in the nation. I think major stress and lack of sleep for almost 5 years caused these problems to appear (though I can't be certain). Starting around college and all the way into my late 20's I struggled with teeth grinding. I rarely had the typical symptoms associated with Bruxism such as sore jaw, popping noises in my ears, complaints from partners/friends (sleeping near me) of grinding, headaches, sleeping problems, and so on. The only typical symptom I was noticing was that my teeth were somewhat sensitive to hot/cold foods however I was managing that via use of special toothpaste (Sensodyne).

Besides the obvious medical problem TMJ was starting to seriously affect my self-confidence and my perception of myself as an attractive individual...i dreaded looking into the mirror at my smile and teeth. They looked almost like a smokers with bad hygiene however I did neither. After almost a decade of grinding most of the enamel on my teeth was destroyed and they had become small and mis-colored. I was seriously becoming worried that if I waited into my 50s that most of my teeth would be gone and i would have to get fake one's. Simple procedures like bleaching were out of the question as due to Bruxism it would have been too painful with all the sensitivity. It was affecting my confidence so much that I was all of a sudden mistaken for a very serious and surly individual by friends, family, and co-workers all because I rarely smiled. I was just too embarrassed to do so due to my horrible teeth. My dental hygiene was not to blame but this "disease" was.

After seeing multiple dentists who all prescribed various orthodontics they all would say the same thing and that is that I could only slow down grinding and minimize the symptoms but that it would not disappear. I refused to believe this and searched high and low for a solution, to an extent where many other things in life (including socializing, women, friends) were of a secondary nature. One depressing night while talking in dental forums I somehow came across LVI (Las Vegas Institute) which basically does post graduate teaching for dentists and is considered one of the best dental schools in the world on the cutting edge of technology. They were teaching courses to dentists on exactly the types of problems that i was having and were certifying dentists in these modern thearpy techniques. I came across a dentist in Washington, DC area who was highly recommended and had studied at LVI and specialized in not only cosmetic dentistry but in restorative & neuromuscular dentistry. (note the last 2 words are very important, you don't just want an aesthetic fix, you want the dentist to get to the root of the problem and manage your symptoms and this disorder).

My goal was to reverse years of dental damage and neglect. By renewing structurally unsound teeth, and properly positioning jaw joints and muscles, I was able to finally get a nice smile and perfectly shaped pearly-white teeth. I won't go into too many details suffice it to say that I was hooked up to just about every type of bio-electric equipment with dozens of sensors all over my face, neck, forehead and ear area measuring various types of jaw/mouth movements. Based on baseline recordings and then comparing them to readings that my dentist would expect from a normal individual he went through about 6 sessions of intensive electrical stimulation each lasting for around an hour. These sessions were 1 -2 times per month. Each time he would re-adjust the K7 machine to either make the electrical current stronger or weaker, resulting in my jaw muscles moving at different intervals (the goal was to move my jaw muscles just enough where they almost touched the teeth but not quite...if the teeth touched, i.e., clicked then the current was too strong). Hundreds and hundreds of these reps would be performed in each session. Bite adjustments would be made and bite force measured. Over time my jaws were realigned into neutral positions and these positions were re-inforced through even more time spent hooked to the K7 machine.

These sessions were slightly uncomfortable, as my jaw and facial muscles were twitching 100's of times. It is hard to imagine this type of therapy unless you have been through this before however easiest example I can give you is of Bruce Lee (though he did this for sport not therapy):





After about a year of visits and therapy according to my dentist my jaw and "resting bite" were finally re-aligned to normal levels. I was also given special mouthguard and told to monitor the impact of my teeth unto them to see if grinding was still occurring. After about a month or so of this when my dentist was sure that my jaw was realigned and clenching was not happening I was finally prepped for the big day, where reconstructive surgery would occur. Honestly this was one of the most uncomfortable days of my life, I had to lay in a dental chair for 8 hours while 2 dentists worked on restoring my teeth. It basically meant a lot of shaping of teeth , drilling them down, and then finally crowning most of them (note the crowning was a bit different from typical aesthetic dentistry as it is based on the "height" of my bite). Also, my dentist worked on adjusting the crowns to fit a more natural smile which he sad would self-restore over time as the facial muscles got used to me finally smiling on a consistent basis.

Not to brag too much but nowadays my teeth look so good that a gay guy recently hit on me at a tennis club just because of my smile. Women at work constantly ask me if they're real...of course I reply they are not wanting to get into details (even though damage was done and what was left of my original teeth all had to be properly crowned). Most importantly neither sensitivity nor grinding is an issue anymore though my dentist still recommends that I wear a custom mouth guard (just in case) at night which I religiously do.

In case anyone wants the name of my dentist or any more info on Bruxism & TMJ you can PM.

Post: #20

How much did that cost for both the treatments and the full crowns. 40 grand? Or does insurance cover some of it? My cousin has TMJ. But I have never been diagnosed as having it.

Post: #21

(03-27-2014 10:51 PM)kbell Wrote:  How much did that cost for both the treatments and the full crowns. 40 grand? Or does insurance cover some of it? My cousin has TMJ. But I have never been diagnosed as having it.

Hi Kbell, you need to find a dentist who deals in neuromuscular dentistry to be properly diagnosed. Majority of the time if one suffers from long-term burxism then you also have TMJ symptoms as your teeth are interconnected to your jaw muscles and even without knowing you might be moving them subconsciously. TMJ rehab is still a new medical science and constantly evolving, most conventional dentists don't have the proper training to diagnose TMJ.
It took me almost 2 years to get over Burxism & TMJ. I probably made about 10 visits to the dental office over that time, with 6 of them stricltly for electrical "shock" therapy. There's still a slight chance I might do it at night but if before this condition was an 8 now it is probably no higher than a 2. I can function properly and don't stress over it.

My insurance did not cover all the symptoms as many insurance companies don't even acknowledge TMJ or Burxism. Even after my dentist wrote a letter to the insurance company and myself filing an appeal to the healthcare board they only covered about 30% of my total health costs. If you're in America you can also write off some of them off your taxes if the health costs exceed 7.5% of your gross income per year (TurboTax will give you the right number). So if I make 100k, anything spent above $7.5k on healthcare would be a tax deductible.

Overall over the course of 2 years I probably spent around $50k with about 40% of that written off taxes/covered by my insurer.
By the way, I went to one of the top dentists in my region...you could probably save $10k off this figure if you went to someone less experienced or even more if you did it overseas however since curing TMJ is a relatively new science in dentistry I doubt many foreign dentists would know how to treat it properly.

Post: #22

(03-27-2014 08:17 AM)assman Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 02:15 AM)Vicious Wrote:  I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Damn that's pricey. I just use the $20 mouthguards from the pharmacy (not the sports mouthguards). Put in hot water, form to teeth and you're set.

When it comes to personal health. Especially something like teeth. $300 is NOTHING.

Post: #23

(03-28-2014 12:36 PM)Vicious Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 08:17 AM)assman Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 02:15 AM)Vicious Wrote:  I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Damn that's pricey. I just use the $20 mouthguards from the pharmacy (not the sports mouthguards). Put in hot water, form to teeth and you're set.

When it comes to personal health. Especially something like teeth. $300 is NOTHING.

Sure, I agree. But what are you getting for the extra $280 that a $20 mouthguard isn't giving you? There may some added value, but I'm not seeing it.

You mentioned it being hard plastic, so longevity is probably one factor.

Post: #24

(03-28-2014 01:11 PM)assman Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 12:36 PM)Vicious Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 08:17 AM)assman Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 02:15 AM)Vicious Wrote:  I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Damn that's pricey. I just use the $20 mouthguards from the pharmacy (not the sports mouthguards). Put in hot water, form to teeth and you're set.

When it comes to personal health. Especially something like teeth. $300 is NOTHING.

Sure, I agree. But what are you getting for the extra $280 that a $20 mouthguard isn't giving you? There may some added value, but I'm not seeing it.

You mentioned it being hard plastic, so longevity is probably one factor.

it has to do with the design. A sports mouth guard is meant to absorb concussive blows. A dental mouth guard will distribute the force of the grinding across all teeth in a way that minimizes impact. A sports mouth guard will stop wear and tear on the teeth, but the force of biting causes teeth to bend, resulting in gum recession and a shortening of roots.
tl,dr: a sports mouth guard will protect teeth but not gums.

Post: #25

(03-28-2014 01:15 PM)clever alias Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 01:11 PM)assman Wrote:  

(03-28-2014 12:36 PM)Vicious Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 08:17 AM)assman Wrote:  

(03-27-2014 02:15 AM)Vicious Wrote:  I had a hard plastic mouth guard molded by my dentist, cost me a cool $400 but definitely one of the better investments of my life. I sleep like a baby at night now.

Damn that's pricey. I just use the $20 mouthguards from the pharmacy (not the sports mouthguards). Put in hot water, form to teeth and you're set.

When it comes to personal health. Especially something like teeth. $300 is NOTHING.

Sure, I agree. But what are you getting for the extra $280 that a $20 mouthguard isn't giving you? There may some added value, but I'm not seeing it.

You mentioned it being hard plastic, so longevity is probably one factor.

it has to do with the design. A sports mouth guard is meant to absorb concussive blows. A dental mouth guard will distribute the force of the grinding across all teeth in a way that minimizes impact. A sports mouth guard will stop wear and tear on the teeth, but the force of biting causes teeth to bend, resulting in gum recession and a shortening of roots.
tl,dr: a sports mouth guard will protect teeth but not gums.

I was never talking about a sports mouthguard. I'm talking about the $20 dental mouthguards you can get at a pharmacy. They are designed and marketed for nighttime grinding, not sports.