Clenching or Grinding your Teeth? Chipped Teeth?
Clenching or grinding, also known as bruxism, can lead to destructive and irreversible damage to your teeth. Very often the excessive wear occurs during deep sleep, when you are unconscious. Less commonly, clenching can occur during the day when experiencing high levels of stress.
Many patients are unaware that grinding and clenching occur until damage to the teeth becomes severe. Symptoms often include: headache, jaw joint or ear pain, aching or sensitive teeth, cracked or chipped tooth enamel and mobile (loose) teeth.
Managing tooth grinding or clenching often involves minimising the damage to the teeth with a protective customised splint (night guard). These splints are specially constructed to reduce the stresses on your teeth and muscles and to reduce the triggers that stimulate the action of grinding. If damage to your teeth has already occurred, reconstructive treatment may be needed to restore your teeth to their original appearance and function.
Approximate Fee Range: $360 – $550 (custom splint/night guard)*
*Fee may be subject to change or may be out of date
Call us on 07 3357 4177 to arrange a consultation with our dentists today!
Frequently Asked Questions
We don’t completely understand what causes bruxism.
Possible physical or psychological causes may include:
- Emotions, such as anxiety, stress, anger, frustration or tension
- Abnormal alignment of upper and lower teeth (malocclusion)
- Other sleep problems, such as sleep apnoea
- Response to pain from an earache or teething (in children)
- An uncommon side effect of some medications, such as antidepressants
- Complication resulting from a disorder such as Huntington’s disease or Parkinson’s disease
We tend to find tooth grinding is mostly associated with stress, younger age and can increase with the use of tobacco, caffeine or alcohol.
Because grinding often occurs during sleep, most people are unaware that they grind their teeth. However, a dull, constant headache or sore jaw when you wake up is a tell-tale symptom of bruxism. Many times people learn that they grind their teeth by their loved one who hears the grinding at night.
Signs and symptoms of bruxism may include:
- Teeth grinding or clenching, which may be loud enough to awaken your sleep partner
- Teeth that are flattened, fractured, chipped or loose
- Worn tooth enamel, exposing the deeper dentine and pulpal layers of your tooth
- Chipping and thinning of front teeth
- Increased tooth sensitivity
- Jaw or face pain or soreness
- Tired or tight jaw muscles
- Pain that feels like an earache, though it’s actually not a problem with your ear
- Dull headache originating in the temples
- Damage from chewing on the inside of your cheek
- Indentations on your tongue
The biggest sign of bruxism is toothwear which results in shortening and chipping of the front teeth along with exposure of the softer dentine layer.
In some cases, chronic teeth grinding can result in a fracturing, loosening, or loss of teeth. The chronic grinding may wear teeth down to stumps and cause the loss of existing fillings which have been placed.
Not only can severe grinding damage teeth and result in tooth loss, it can also affect your jaws, cause or worsen jaw joint issues, and even change the appearance of your face by shortening your teeth and deepening your bite.