Community | November 13, 2007 | 4 comments

Teeth Grinding Akin to Having a Linebacker Stand on your Teeth

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/health/13grin.html?em&ex=1195102800&en=35afa717ab2d7953&ei...

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Oh great. As a confirmed sleeping, tooth grinding monster, this news sucks.

It’s called sleep bruxism, and it refers to the grinding or clenching of teeth. There’s a waking version, too — an unconscious clenching of the teeth, most often owing to stress — but the origins are different and the effects are seldom anywhere near as bad as during sleep, when certain of the body’s protective mechanisms are turned off. Left untreated, it can cause damage to the teeth and surrounding tissue, headaches and jaw pain.

Bruxism may be at least as old as the Bible, which describes hell as a state where there is “gnashing of teeth.” I might fairly be accused of hyperbole if I reversed the equation and declared that bruxism can turn sleep into a kind of hell. But you get the idea. It’s a real nuisance.

During sleep bruxism, he explained, the upper and lower teeth may come into direct contact as much as 40 minutes per hour, and — for example, on the first molar — with a force of about 250 pounds. Hence the football player. Compare that with normal circumstances, when a person’s teeth make contact for about 20 minutes a day, while chewing, and with only 20 to 40 pounds of pressure.

Sleep bruxism is not a disease, but a sleep disorder, the third most common one behind sleep talking and snoring. It is more prevalent in children, who often outgrow it, and its origins may be different in adults.

“The exact causes are unknown,” said Dr. Gilles Lavigne. If anyone would know, it’s Dr. Lavigne, a professor of dentistry and medicine at the University of Montreal, and president of the Canadian Sleep Society who has published extensively on the topic. In the 1960s, he explains, bruxism was thought to be the body’s response to “malocclusion,” or problems with how the upper and lower teeth fit together; but that theory was discredited for lack of clinical evidence.
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    Medicine,  Teeth,  Sleep Disorders,  Dental Health,  1 more
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4 comments // Teeth Grinding Akin to Having a Linebacker Stand on your Teeth

  • natalie579
    • 0
      natalie579  

    • I grind my teeth when I sleep, and I always thought it was sort of annoying, but now it seems even worse. I hope I'm not doing terrible permanent damage.

    • 4 years ago
  • Kinga_Philipps
    • 0
      Kinga_Philipps  

    • great, I have all three top sleep disorders. I snore, talk in my sleep and I grind my teeth! I know, its incredibly hot. To make it even hotter, I have a handy dandy mouth guard to keep me from grinding my teeth down to nothing.

    • 4 years ago
  • jennatar
    • 0
      jennatar  

    • My dentist told my parents I would outgrow bruxism at night, and of course, I did not. In fact! If you look carefully at my teeth, some of them are visibly serrated from years of gnashing and grinding.

      One dentist recommended braces to correct a very slight overbite, but this didn't have an effect on the nightly party-in-my-mouth. So if you ask me, this 'malocclusion' theory is totally bogus.

    • 4 years ago
  • joshuaheller
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