Chronic teeth grinding can impact teens and adults, and without treatment, this could lead to damaged teeth and major complications. Also known as bruxism, this can pose a serious risk for your smile! But your Ankeny, IA, dentist can offer help with a preventive approach to teeth grinding treatment.
The Dangers of Bruxism
When you grind and clench your teeth at night on a regular basis, this pressure could begin to wear down outer tooth structure and could even crack or chip the teeth. This could make them appear shorter than usual, and could expose the sensitive inner structure to harmful bacteria, which leads to tooth decay and dental infection, threatening the stability of your smile. Which is why you should see our team when you begin to experience symptoms.
Your significant other could let you know that you are grinding your teeth, but there are also symptoms that occur during waking hours, such as headaches, migraines, jaw and facial pain, aches in the neck and shoulders, or toothaches and tooth sensitivity. Don’t ignore these symptoms, contact our team for a diagnosis and to discuss oral appliance treatment.
Treatment with an Oral Appliance
We could help address bruxism by improving bite balance with crowns or bonding. We could correct misalignment with orthodontics, and our team could even replace missing teeth with a dental prosthetic. But in most cases, we offer a noninvasive and comfortable solution known as an oral appliance. The device will look and fit like a mouthguard, but has been custom-fitted for your smile based on detailed digital images and measurements we take of your smile. When in place, this repositions the jaw to ease underlying strain. This also puts a soft barrier between the upper and lower sets of teeth to prevent further damage!
Repairing Your Teeth
If you have teeth have been damaged by bruxism, we can offer treatment to repair them and improve your oral health and smile beauty. For minor injuries, we could use dental bonding to repair the teeth in one visit with composite resin. If your injuries are more substantial, then our team could create and place a custom-made dental crown. We want to help return your smile to full function, health, and beauty again.
If you have any questions about how we diagnose and treat issues like bruxism, or about our custom oral appliances, then contact our team today to learn more. We want to help you smile with comfort and confidence!
Dental Impressions Talks About Preventive Dentistry
Our team wants to help you find relief from the impact of bruxism! To find out more about our approach to preventive teeth grinding treatment, then call Dental Impressions in Ankeny, IA today at (515) 965-0230.
