Teeth grinding is rubbing the teeth together or lateral motion of the jaw while the bottom and top teeth are in contact. It is a kind of a chewing activity however there is no food in the mouth for chewing on. Most of the cases, teeth grinding happened during sleep time, that’s why most sufferers does not aware of their habit. In the medical term, it is known as Bruxism.
Teeth grinding and bruxism
There are two main behaviors of Bruxism:
- Jaw clenching.
- Teeth grinding
Jaw clenching and teeth grinding above can occur simultaneously and one sufferer to other sufferer will exhibit differing proportions of these behaviors. If somebody told you that you are grinding your teeth during sleep then you should also ask yourself if you are clenching your teeth and look out for the other bruxism symptoms.
<<–Go to Charles Harrison’s page for detail of Bruxism–>>
Effects of teeth grinding
Take a note that this disorder will potentially to wear away the enamel from the teeth, and will lead to exposed dentine which is softer than enamel, after which the rest of the tooth will be ground away even faster.
Grinding Teeth while asleep will be much stronger compare with when you are awake and can cause a considerable amount of noise that may disturb the sleep of the sufferer as well as their bed partner.
Treatments for teeth grinding
As mentioned previously, teeth grinding is considered as a sleep disorder symptoms or bruxism, hence the treatments for teeth grinding and treatment for bruxism are the same.
There are few treatments for teeth grinding with any clinically proven efficacy; in some cases hypnotherapy can help to reduce or stop grinding your teeth but in most cases the best that can be done is to control the teeth grinding condition by wearing a night guard at night.
