Bruxism, or teeth grinding, is an involuntary contraction of the jaws, usually during sleep. It makes noise, it destroys your teeth and you wake up the next day with pain. Here are some things you didn’t know about bruxism to better understand where it comes from, what it causes and how to bury alive your friends who do bruxism.
1. Bruxism affects more people than you think
More than you actually think. 8% of young adults between 20 and 25 years old are affected and at least 60% of the population have already experienced bruxism at least once in their life. Among children, 14% cringe these boloss, but don’t even worry that it’s because they have baby teeth. In general, bruxism can affect anyone at any time of life, it depends on an important factor on which I continue in the second point.
2. The main cause of bruxism is stress
And hop the revelation that changes your daily life forever. The main cause of bruxism is anxiety. High anxiety. Generally if you’re stressed before the doctor’s shot, you’re not going to start grinding your teeth at night, but most people bruxism from deep stress.
3. But there are other lesser-known causes
Bruxism can also be due to a series of interrupted periods of sleep or general anesthesia, misaligned or missing teeth, atypical swallowing, certain antidepressants such as venlafaxine, taking narcotics such as ecstasy or meth, whiplash, and finally certain infectious diseases like West Nile fever. It seems a lot like that but it’s impossible for you to do all that in one life.
4. There are different bruxisms
As the world is well made, bruxism contains particularities. First, static bruxism, which is “simply” a continuous clenching of the jaws, as if you were on edge for 24 hours. Then dynamic bruxism, where your lower jaw has fun making sideways movements, which then causes the grinding noise that wakes up the whole house.
5. Your teeth are expensive
The intense friction of the teeth between them leads to wear of their surface and weakening of the enamel. The long-term risk is to have your teeth filed down. In addition, the teeth become much more sensitive. Not that they cry when you tell them they look bad, but it can happen that they move, or even fracture in the worst case. More generally, tooth wear leads to extreme sensitivity to acidic foods that are too hot or too cold.
6. It causes other pain in different places
In addition to cardboard teeth, bruxism causes other unpleasant side effects. If you grind your teeth for a good part of the night, you may wake up with headaches, pain in the neck or shoulders, even nausea, ear pain, a feeling of instability, sometimes tinnitus. Again usually, you only suffer from one or two of these effects, which absolutely does not allow you to start the day in good conditions.
7. The gutter, necessary but not life-saving
The first way to stem the effects of bruxism is the gutter. Tailor-made for your little teeth, it helps limit the damage and save them from being filed down like prison bars. THE GUTTIER DOES NOT CURE BRUXISM BUT REMAINS SUPER USEFUL SO CALM YOURSELF.
8. Relaxation and hypnosis
To cure bruxism, you have to cut your jaw. That’s wrong, put that saw down.
To cure bruxism, you have to go back to the source of the problem, work on this anxiety that burns your heart and irradiates your body. You can then have recourse to a psychiatric care, or try relaxation, yoga, hypnosis, sophrology. Changes in diet can also have an effect. There is no miracle cure, it’s up to you to find the path that suits you best and talk about it with experts and not stop at a Topito article.
There are also more direct medical treatments like the injection of botulinum toxin, which calms the powerful muscles of your jaws.
Personally, I started with jaw and neck massages before sleeping, and it works pretty well.
9. What to do when your other half with whom you sleep has bruxism?
At night, bruxism is like snoring. The person making the noise is not the person awakened by that noise. So if your partner cringes, my personal trick is to gently put her on her side, then roll her to her mother’s house in the bus shelter.
Well, this article remains a global approach to what bruxism is, so it’s up to you to find more information on the web or from bruxism experts (types who work for the CIA and who investigate murders linked to bruxism). Kisses.
Sources : Fondation-Rothschild, Fang, Cda-adc, Wikipedia