Ann-Marie Banks, from Apollonia House Dental and Health Care in Grasscroft, looks at dental occlusion and treatments available.
Please feel free to call Apollonia House Dental and Health on 01457 821800 or email info@apolloniahouse.com for any dental questions or concerns you have. You can also visit their website.
Dental occlusion is another name for the way your teeth meet when your jaws bite together.
If your teeth don’t fit together properly, if you are missing teeth or if you overuse your jaws by clenching or grinding your teeth, you can develop problems in your teeth and also in the gums.
Teeth that are out of line, heavily worn or constantly breaking, fillings that fracture or crowns that work loose may all be signs of occlusal problems.
Your teeth may also be tender to bite on and sensitive, or you might get clicking and popping in your jaw joints and maybe even find it hard to open your mouth wide.
If your jaw is in the wrong position the muscles that move the jaw have to work a lot harder and can get tired. This leads to muscle fatigue, which can also cause tension headaches or migraine, especially first thing in the morning, pain behind your eyes, sinus pain and pains in your neck and shoulders. Sometimes even the neck and back muscles can be involved.
Research shows up to 80 per cent of people clench or grind their teeth, most often during sleep, but most people aren’t aware of it.
Sometimes this can be caused by anxiety, but it’s normal for most people to clench their teeth when they are concentrating on a task, such as housework, gardening, car mechanics, or using a keyboard.
Together, all these symptoms are called temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD). If you suspect this might be affecting you, ask your dentist for advice and the management of TMD.
Treatment can be as simple as carefully adjusting your teeth to meet more evenly, and changing the direction and position of the slopes that guide your teeth together can often help to relax the jaw.
If your dentist suspects your symptoms are due to clenching, they may help to diagnose the problem by giving you a hard plastic appliance that fits over your upper or lower teeth.
This appliance may just be something to fit between the front teeth line called a Sleep Clench Inhibitor (SCI), which allows your muscles to relax. This is usually worn overnight and can help to confirm it is your teeth that are the cause of your symptoms.
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