This week’s blogs have centered around our article, Tooth Sensitivity: How Your World Golf Village Dentist Can Help. Toothpastes can only do so much. There is a reason why you have the tooth sensitivity. To find it, see your World Golf Village dentist, and If its food, you know to start by rinsing after meals. This is a good idea almost no matter what. If its brushing too hard you are doing it softer or will get the new Oral-B toothbrush app that alerts you to brushing too hard. And we have started to get an understanding of one of the big causes of tooth sensitivity: clenching and grinding.
Grinding of teeth typically occurs do to some form of sleep disorder. It is important to determine what type of sleep disorder you have. It may be simple snoring, it may be something more dangerous like obstructive sleep apnea. Regardless we need to know, and the only way to know is by taking a sleep test.
Treating many different types of sleep disorders can be accomplished at our World Golf Village dental office with an oral appliance. If you grind your teeth, you need some type of support for your jaw. If it is determined that you have obstructive sleep apnea, an oral appliance will stop the tongue from blocking your airway, hence preventing the obstruction from occurring. It will also help protect your teeth from grinding. This night time appliance will support your jaw, and by supporting your jaw we can help minimize your aches.
But many people need support for their jaw during the day as well. This will require what we call a day time appliance. While not terribly original names, the night and day time appliance let you know what they do. They both support your jaw and help keep your bite where it wants to be. Remember how we said we can make your aches go away? Make the muscles and nerves happy and you are happy? By supporting your muscles you will make you happy. You will no longer be the bully!
Now we don’t want you to have to walk around with a day time appliance the rest of your life. But the idea is to get you some immediate relief. We will use the day time appliance to find your ideal bite. From there we can permanently keep you at your ideal bite with same day dental crowns from your World Golf Village dentist. Or we can move your teeth to that new position. This can be accomplished with Invisalign. Invisalign uses clear plastic trays to help move and align your teeth without anyone know you are doing it. After placing your bite in its appropriate position, with either dental crowns or Invisalign, your muscles will be happy and you will no longer need the day time appliance. The night time appliance would still be necessary because we need to keep your airway open and gravity will still keep working even if you have a perfect bite.
With everything now supported, your teeth will hit correctly and the grinding should be cured. Since you have been using the extra strength fluoride toothpaste during this treatment time, your sensitivity will be gone and the SOURCE of the grinding is gone. The power of your teeth will be now only used for good (eating all those foods you love!) rather than evil (creating tooth sensitivity, breaking dental crowns and dental filling) purposes. Happy teeth are not sensitive. Happy muscles do not ache. There is a reason they do this. Find the reason and you will find out how to stop the sensitivity. And how do you find the reason? See your World Golf Village Dentist in St Augustine, Dr. Steven Freeman. To make an appointment call (904) 940-3933 or click our CONTACT BUTTON.