Grinding & Clenching
Bruxism (tooth grinding) is a common habit of grinding the upper and lower teeth together while clenching. It occurs most often at night. The pressure of night grinding is 6x greater than grinding while awake. Do you wake up with a headache, earache or neck pain?
"One of the most unusual aspects of bruxism (grinding and clenching) is that often the one who does it is not even aware of the habit." Dr. Peter Dawson Long term, the damage can be dramatic. We now know that grinding of the upper and lower teeth can lead to worn enamel, enlarged jaw muscles, split teeth, and fractured fillings. Emotional stress may play a role. Usually when the bite is out of balance it will trigger grinding.
Signs: worn off enamel (the outer covering of the tooth) and you will see an orange or grey color which is the underlying dentin (which is 7x softer than enamel) . Dentin needs to be covered. Other-wise the wear will continue but at a rate 7x faster. Since the nerve of the tooth is just inside the dentin, if your wear continues you will expose the nerve. Pain and infection will occur and a root canal treatment will be needed. Bonding can be placed to cover the worn areas. Sometimes caps (crowns) are needed. The amount and location of the wear is a factor. It is inevitable for damage to occur with the presence of such an overload.
A ligament surrounds the tooth can be compressed under heavy biting forces. This makes adjusting the bite and creating even distribution of forces so challenging for people that clench strongly. There are two ways to manage the bite forces to make them more evenly distributed: reshape interfering areas of the tooth and/or make a bite guard. The bite guard is very helpful in protecting teeth from destructive forces while sleeping. Chronic sinusitis can cause teeth in the upper back areas to shift and have interferences. A solution is a soft guard worn at night which will cushion teeth. | 
