Friday, March 1, 2013

• How stress can damage your Teeth


Life is stressful, life is tiring, and life is busy; if you think so too, then yes we agree with you. It is not a lie. But are you sure that these little stressful times are not causing you anything serious other than mental tension? Is stress bothering really bothering you? Or do you feel like having a tired jaw when you wake up?? If no then that’s very good. If yes then be a little more aware, because it can be due to teeth grinding.
Teeth grinding or ‘bruxism’ is becoming a very common habit nowadays and the funny part is that most people are unaware of that they have been grinding their teeth all night; all they find is tired jaw/muscles when they wake up or little pain / trouble while talking and chewing. An addiction which is the habit of grinding or clenching your teeth mostly occurs at night when you’re asleep. A very sure reason for it is ‘stress’. The stresses we take lead us to grind our teeth, sometimes severely.
In our small survey, people gave different reasons which according to them are causing them to grind their teeth (when we asked then general questions about it). We concluded these main points which are important causes of teeth grinding.

Causes:
1- Stress
2- Allergic reaction
3- Intense medication
4- Anxiety
5- Tension
6- Trauma
7- Sleeping disorders/insomnia
8- Environmental factors.

If you suffer from this problem, take a moment and think what is it which is bothering you? Life is unfair, alright we admit that; but don’t let it take away your health and beautiful smile. Everyone has problems but the problematic time will pass eventually. Why to let this little time give you a life time disorder. Don’t take things personally in life. Take a deep breath and let it all go. Continuous grinding can further lead to depression, eating disorders, headaches, mobile (loose) teeth, most importantly ‘TOOTH SENSITIVITY’ and much more.
More than 70 percent of health problems occur due to immense stress and tension. Sometimes stress takes away our health in the form of diabetes, tumor, blood pressure, heart attack and sometimes it takes us slowly from the part we often think it won’t take us from example: mouth/teeth. A sensitive part related to your precious face.
We don’t have any highly approved synthetic material to regenerate teeth again; so once you lose them you can never have them back. So why not to take care of your teeth right now while you can and why let it go in more serious conditions which are very difficult and expensive to cure.
You can take these simple measures to stop yourself from grinding your teeth

How you can stop Bruxism (Treatment):
1- Relax your muscles, by gently massaging them with your fingers or with a warm piece of cloth.
2- Cut back food and drinks like soda and caffeine.
3- Avoid alcohol
4- Don’t chew non edible objects like sticks, pen, pencils, straw, and tooth picks etc.
5- Most importantly adapt yourself to not clench your teeth. Be conscious about it, stop it whenever you feel as if your jaw is going in clenching position or in other words your jaw is going in contact position with the opposite arch.
6- You can consult your dentist and have a night-guard, which is especially designed to reduce intensity of forces applied on the opposite arch during teeth clenching/ grinding.

These are simple measures which you can do by yourself. If your condition is worse then, advanced treatments like habit breakers, crowning, botox can be used, but try just not to reach up to that severity.
Well, above all nothing is possible if you have ‘will power’. Have the will power to overcome it. 
Life is beautiful, human stresses and tensions in response to ups and downs of life are important; otherwise it will be like just a robot doing it’s job. But don’t let these small problems take away your precious health. No matter what you do or become, health is your real wealth. Anything artificial cannot replace natural parts of your body in a true way. Keep your worries as much away from your health as possible.
                                                                    Dr. Aqsa Kamal

No comments:

Post a Comment