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
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