Our talented team at Long Beach Family Dentist has years of experience dealing with painful teeth grinding. Here’s what you need to know about your bruxism. When you have a chipped or cracked tooth, or you wake up every night with a painful and sore jaw, chances are you’re suffering from sleep bruxism. What is bruxism? Bruxism is the official term for chronic grinding and clenching your teeth, usually unconsciously. While it is most common at night, many people find that their bruxism is awake when they are, leaving them unaware of the harm they’re doing to their smile during their daily lives. Although more mild forms of bruxism are generally harmless, the damage even thin or unnoticeable cracks can do to your natural smile is often surprising to our patients. Chips and cracks can go deep into the dentin and pulp layers of the tooth, causing painful trauma that can even put the life of your tooth at risk! Your dental pulp contains the crucial blood vessels and nerves acting as the beating heart of your tooth. Significant damage to them can be a dental nightmare. However, even if your crack or chip doesn’t reach that far, they can still leave your inner tooth exposed to bacteria and terrible cavities.

Signs of Bruxism While the most common bruxism symptom is teeth grinding and clenching, many of our patients don’t know about their nighttime grinding. Instead, they have to look for other warning signs: Worn and flat teeth Fractures, cracks, and chips in teeth Loose teeth Exposed teeth layers deeper than the enamel Waking up at night Tooth pain and sensitivity Jaw, face, and neck soreness, which may be signs of TMJ disorder Chronic dull headaches and earaches Broken fillings or crowns What Causes Teeth Grinding? While the exact cause of bruxism isn’t yet known, there are a range of different reasons and risk factors believed to contribute to both awake and asleep bruxism: Stress and anxiety Anger and frustration Habit while deeply concentrating Medications, particularly SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) Aggressive or hyperactive personalities Certain mental health and medical disorders, including ADHD, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and epilepsy Sleeping disorders (sleep apnea, sleep talking, sleep paralysis, night terrors, and semi-conscious hallucinations) Drinking alcohol Excessively drinking caffeinated beverages (6+ cups per day) How to Stop Grinding Teeth/Bruxism Bruxism treatment is super simple here at Long Beach Family Dentist. For many patients, we can custom design a night guard for teeth grinding that perfectly fits your mouth. These mouth guards act as a cushion for your teeth, preventing them from clenching and rubbing against each other while you’re trying to catch up on all those sleepless nights caused by your bruxism. If your bruxism is severe, we can also tailor the thickness and material of your nighttime device to ensure that it is always as comfortable and effective as possible. We can also help you with any dental problems that may have reared their head in the wake of your chronic teeth grinding. With cosmetic cracks, chips, and wear, tooth bonding or porcelain dental veneers can restore your tooth until it looks better than it has in years. More severe damage and bruxism-caused cavities can be taken care of with fillings, crowns, and even root canal procedures. The same teeth grinding guard we use for your dental grinding can also help prevent, or at least limit, the pain and pressure of TMJ disorder.

Frequently Asked Questions Why do I grind my teeth at night? There are several reasons that you may be suffering from sleep bruxism. Many of our patients who are stressed and anxious or who have very high energy or aggressive personality types often find that they suffer from both sleep and awake bruxism. Sleep bruxism is most common with patients who already have other sleeping problems, such as sleep talking or kicking, sleep apnea, or frequent sleep disruptions. Depending on your specific cause, our dentists can work with you to determine the right bruxism treatment for you, including a nighttime mouth guard. Can you crack a tooth from grinding? Yes, you can. Grinding teeth at night especially puts unwanted stress and pressure on one or more of your teeth. This uneven force can strain the tooth past its breaking point until it cracks, chips, or fractures. Bruxism can also lead to other health problems like TMJ disorder, which can cause chronic jaw, mouth, and tooth pain and even make it difficult for you to open your mouth. Oftentimes, our Long Beach dentists will prepare a mouth guard for teeth grinding to prevent these problems from developing or worsening. How bad is a cracked tooth? Sometimes, like with cracked tooth syndrome, a crack is too small to show up even on X-rays. However, that doesn’t mean that these teeth, often molars, are harmless. They can still be extremely painful when eating or having a hot or cold drink. And since many patients leave their cracked teeth untreated for months, this often leaves teeth vulnerable to bacteria and decay. In these cases, cracked teeth come hand in hand with severe cavities in desperate need of root canal or crown treatment. However, suppose the damage is only surface-level and doesn’t involve cracked tooth pain. In that case, your dental trauma is much less serious. These cracks often only need remineralization or cosmetic restoration to heal. Is a chipped tooth a dental emergency? If you chip your tooth due to your bruxism, it is not a dental emergency unless it is painful, reaches further than the outer enamel of your tooth, or leaves a sharp fragment. These urgent conditions need immediate treatment because they are either signs that something is terribly wrong with your tooth or your mouth is in danger of worse problems. If the damage is only cosmetic, you don’t have to schedule an appointment with us immediately. Still, we highly recommend that you have one of our dentists look at your tooth. We’ll be able to determine the extent of your tooth’s damage, and we can give you a simple and painless chipped tooth repair in the form of dental bonding or porcelain veneers.