Teeth contact in function during the day when chewing, talking, swallowing at high frequency but low load.
These forces can increase at times during the day when concentrating or at the gym, where you may clench as you put in greater efforts but at night time the forces are even more significant as protective mechanisms shutdown overnight leading to10 fold increase in forces whilst asleep.
Bruxism, parafunction or tooth grinding/clenching occurs in many people when not eating/ swallowing or talking these behaviors are not useful but tend to increase mileage on teeth and thus cause them to breakdown or for muscles and joints to become painful leading to headaches as well as muscular head and neck pain and stress on the jaw joint (temporomandibular joint or TMJ).
Many patients are unaware that they are doing this, however it can lead to tooth sensitivity, cracked and broken teeth, cracked fillings and excessive tooth wear. If a diagnosis of bruxism or clenching is made a night time splint (night guard/occlusal splint) may be recommended. It is a custom made device that is fitted to one of top or bottom jaw and is worn through the night.
It protects the top teeth from contacting the bottom teeth and any grinding/ clenching loads are distributed across a greater area and the splint being softer than your teeth will sacrifice itself over time.
