A severe habit of bruxism leaves behind a critical impact on your teeth. Teeth grinding leaves behind your teeth with cracks and a flat base. Hence, patients with bruxism might experience eating difficulties. Moreover, the adverse effect is not only limited to teeth but also extends to jaw muscles. As a result, many experience sore, tender, and stiff jaw muscles. Hence, it’s essential to control this habit to curb the damage caused by it. Therefore, let’s discuss a few remedies that will help you to prevent bruxism.
Night Guards And Mouth Splints:
Our first step shall be to minimize the damage inflicted on our teeth. Therefore, you can start by wearing night guards and splints before going to sleep. Night Guards and mouth splints are made of plastic or rubber, with splints fabricated from a sturdier, long-lasting plastic. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that one is less effective than the other.
These plastic guards work by evening out the pressure exerted on the teeth during an episode of bruxism. Moreover, they create a physical barrier between teeth and the rest of your mouth. You can buy night guards and splints from a local pharmacy; however, many face fitting issues, so you can also opt for a custom-made mouthguard that fits better. Hence, for a custom mouthguard, give Angleton Family Dental a visit, and our expert team will guide you through the process.
Restoring Your Teeth:
In a dental procedure, the dentist reshapes teeth, fills in the cracks, and levels the biting surface. Sometimes, misaligned surfaces can fuel up the habit of bruxism, so in a reconstruction surgery, the dentist realigns crooked teeth. Hence, such surgeries can help reverse the damage caused by bruxism and help ease or even break the habit.
Managing Your Stress And Behaviour Modeling:
Stress is a major contributing factor leading to bruxism. Hence, stress reduction therapies can help. Moreover, one can try by revamping their daily routine to add in episodes of stress-busting activities, such as:
- Meditation.
- A Walk In Nature.
- Exercise.
If you are suffering from daytime bruxism, you can break or control this habit by behavior modeling. In this, you map out your daily routine and identify the trigger points, and in most cases, these triggers are the period of extreme stress. After identification, you can work on those events that lead to bruxism.
Medication:
Your dentist may prescribe you some medicines, such as muscle relaxants. You would have to take them before going to bed as they will ease your jaw muscles out of the clenched state during the night. Hence, the frequency of bruxism will decrease, and you will wake up with relaxed jaw muscles.
Some researches have shown Botox as an effective treatment to reduce bruxism. However, many doctors are still skeptical about it, and more research is required regarding this aspect.
Conclusion:
These measures can help you minimize the damage caused by bruxism. You can try some of these remedies for bruxism at home. However, if the habits get out of control, contact Angleton Family Dental at 979-308-4450 immediately. This is because your delay will allow bruxism to eat away your perfect set of whites.
