It is common to grin and squeeze teeth. It usually happens when you sleep, which means you don’t notice it. It can also happen when you are awake. You may notice it if your teeth wear out quickly or if you get sore and get hurt in the jaws.
Symptoms of squeeze teeth
It is common that you first do not notice that you grin or squeeze teeth, because you may do so while you sleep. You may also be unaware that you are pressing your teeth when you are awake.
Often it is a dentist who notices that you are gritting teeth when they examine your teeth for some other reason. Occasionally, a relative may hear you grit your teeth as you sleep.
The symptoms differ between squinting and pressing the teeth. You often get more trouble if you squeeze your teeth than if you squeal.
Symptoms if you grit your teeth
After a while, you may notice that your teeth are a little faster than usual. For example, you can see the worn surfaces, especially on the front teeth and canines. Sometimes the edges of the teeth can become sharp or prickly.
The wear is slow, even if you grin a lot.
Symptoms of pressing teeth
The symptoms you get when you press your teeth are due to different parts of the jaws being overloaded due to the press.
These symptoms are common if you press teeth:
- It sounds from one or both jaws when you open or closes your mouth.
- You have a hard time losing big.
- You are in pain or feeling tired in the jaw muscles. It can be described as having facial pain on one or both sides.
- It hurts your jaw when you gap or chew. It can feel worse by chewing chewy food.
- You have unclear soreness or pain in your teeth. It is common for the pain to move between the teeth.
- You have a dull, grinding pain in the temple or over the forehead. It is common to have pain already when you wake up.
- Your teeth are cracking. Small tooth cracks allow it to rush into the tooth. Deeper cracks can cause aches and pains.
When and where should I seek care?
Contact a dentist if you think you are gritting or pressing teeth.
Surveys
Wear can have different causes and so the dentist starts by asking you different things, such as what you usually eat, if you take any medication or if you feel stressed.
To find out if you are pressing teeth, the doctor examines the jaw muscles and jaw joints. They also do a check on how big you can lose and if you have any changes on the tongue or on the mucous membrane of the cheek. The dentist also examines how the upper jaw and lower jaw teeth interact with each other as you bite. They also investigate how the contact between the jaws is when the lower jaw slides sideways and forwards.
What can I do for myself?
There are several things that can cause your teeth to wear out faster if you grit your teeth. An example is if you have a low pH in your mouth. It’s the same as a sour environment. It can occur if you often drink acidic drinks or if you often vomit or have acidic pulsations.
You can counteract that your teeth are worn out faster by eating and drinking less of acidic beverages such as soft drinks and citrus beverages. It is also important that you rinse your mouth afterward if you drink these drinks.
Your saliva can affect how quickly your teeth are worn
Having a little saliva in your mouth can also cause your teeth to wear out faster. You who often feel dry in your mouth can try saline substitutes that are available to buy at a pharmacy without a prescription. Chewing sugar-free chewing gum can also stimulate the salivary glands so you get more saliva in your mouth.
It may also be good to take fluoride supplements, for example in the form of fluorine rinse. This is because fluoride helps protect teeth in the long term.
You can always ask your dentist for advice tailored to you and your teeth.
Treatment of squeeze teeth
There are several treatments that can help if you grin or squeeze teeth.
Exercise program against tooth pressing
The treatment is to break the habit of pressing the jaws together. You get an exercise program with special movements with the lower jaw that relaxes and coordinates the jaw muscles. It takes a few minutes to do the movements and you should do them a few times a day.
It is important that you do the exercises correctly. Your dentist will give you instructions before you start the program and follow up on how it is going.
This type of treatment program primarily helps you press teeth when you are awake.
You can often notice that the exercises help already after a week, but sometimes it takes longer.
Plaster models measure how quickly the teeth wear out
To find out how quickly your teeth wear out, your doctor makes plaster models of your upper jaw and lower jaw. The doctor then measures the length of the teeth in connection with regular examination and is then compared with the plaster model.
You may need a stain rail
You may need a bite rail if you have symptoms from the jaw muscles or the jaw joints that are due to rubbing or squeezing. You can also get a bite rail if the teeth wear out quickly.
There are different types of stain rails. The most common is shaped like a horseshoe and sits in the upper jaw. Most often the stain rail is made of transparent plastic. The bite rail is adapted to your own teeth and tested by a dentist. You have it in your mouth when you sleep.
It varies from person to person for how long a bet rail is needed.
Adjusting the bite if you squeeze teeth
Irregularities in the bite are usually not the cause of tooth pressing but it is important for a dentist to examine the bite. This applies both when you press teeth when you sleep and when you are awake.
The strain on the jaw joints and jaw muscles can be greater if there are bumps in the teeth that cause you to bite obliquely. The dentist can then grind on the enamel or build up the teeth to make the bite better. This means that the load is evenly distributed in the bite.
Tooth pressing at night can be treated with the sting rail after the dentist has treated the bumps if you had any. The bite rail then becomes like a shock absorber between the teeth. You squeeze your teeth less frequently, less hard, and for less time with a bite rail.
How long you need to use the bet rail varies.
It is important that teeth are repaired
It is especially important that your teeth are repaired and that lost teeth are replaced if you squeeze teeth, as the teeth that remain are worn out faster otherwise.
Physiotherapy and pain relief
You may also have pain in the neck muscles and in the muscles of the shoulders if you have symptoms of jaw joints and jaw muscles. You may need treatment from a physiotherapist or physiotherapist if you have such problems. You may also need painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs if you have a lot of pain. Acupuncture also has a certain effect, especially on long-term pain in the jaw muscles. Acupuncture can sometimes have the same effect on the pain as a sting.
What is it?
It is not clear what the rubbing and pressing of teeth when you sleep is due to. This occurs mainly in certain stages of sleep, especially when going from deep to superficial sleep.
There are several things that affect the quality of sleep and that can cause you to grin or squeeze teeth into sleep. For example, it can be smoking, alcohol, stress, anxiety, and snoring.
In unusual cases, gnashing while sleeping may be due to neurological diseases, strokes, drugs, or drug abuse.
Tooth pressing on the day
It is not clear what toothache is due to the day, but it can be associated with stress.
Children crackling teeth
It is quite common for children to grit their teeth. Tooth wheezing can begin as early as one year of age, but often goes over or decreases at the age of seven.
Tooth gnashing in children younger than seven years is often due to the development of the bite and the emergence of new teeth.
Often the small and soft milk teeth are quickly snapped, and the squeaky sound that occurs when the baby is asleep can be very loud.