People who experience tension headaches, migraines, or suffer with sore teeth and aching jaws might chalk up this discomfort to stress alone. What’s really going on is that you might be clenching your teeth while you sleep. This can lead to painful morning headaches, cracked teeth, and sore muscles in your face, neck, and back.
Guard Your Teeth at Night
There are a few options available to help ease your pain. Grinding your teeth is not the same as clenching – patients who fall into this category may be best served by being fitted for a custom nightguard. It’s true that nightguards can be bought over-the-counter, but this quick solution could actually be more detrimental than helpful. An improperly fitted nightguard might actually damage your joint, increase headaches, or cause facial pain.
If you are grinding your teeth at night, or even unconsciously during the day, it’s important to visit a dentist so that you can be examined and a diagnosis can be made to determine what type of dental care you need to help reduce these problems.
Support Your Jaw
It may turn out that you are actually clenching your teeth and jaw more than grinding them, in which case an NTI tension suppression system may be the better choice. This small FDA-approved dental device reduces the force of clenching and helps eliminate migraine headaches, neck pain, sore jaws, and other related aches.
If you are fitted with a nightguard or NTI, you can expect to feel some relief from your pain between one to six weeks of regular nighttime wear.
Dr. Ken Cirka regularly treats dental patients in his Philadelphia dental office who suffer with worn teeth and clenching-induced headaches. If your day-to-day activities and productivity are being affected by these symptoms, schedule your consultation and free new client exam today.
