Tooth Clenching/Grinding
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From snoring to talking, we can do some strange things while we sleep. But one of the most common things we can do is grind our teeth.
Tooth grinding and tooth clenching, also known as Bruxism, can have debilitating effects, including headaches, migraines, chronic tension headaches and enlarged jaw muscles. It can also cause tooth wear and broken teeth.
When your muscles start making your jaw clench and grind your teeth, the trigeminal nerve system, which provides sensation to the face, gets bombarded with signals. This is what leads to a pounding headache or migraine.
Bruxism often goes untreated, because it can be hard to make a connection between the symptoms and grinding or clenching your teeth. However, a dull, constant headache or sore jaw when you wake up is a tell-tale symptom of bruxism.
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Sleep Clench Inhibitor
Luckily, tooth grinding or clenching is very treatable. At Bliss Dental we have a very successful method to help ease the problem. A device called the Sleep Clench Inhibitor, or SCI helps reduce migraines by 77%, according to a recent clinical trial, with no side effects.
The SCI reduces clenching by stopping the canine or back teeth touching. This diminishes muscle contractions in the head and face, which can cause headaches and migraines.
To demonstrate how the SCI works, touch the muscles of your temples while biting down on a pencil with the back teeth as hard as possible. The temporal muscles will bulge and intensely contract. When you bite down on a pencil, with only the front teeth, the temporal muscles remain relaxed. The SCI works in a similar way to the pencil, stopping the back teeth from touching and so ensuring the muscles are not tense.
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Treatment fee
An SCI costs £350 and can be made in one visit to Bliss Dental.
We also offer a laboratory made SCI which is even more robust, for heavy clenchers, and this costs £425.
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Michigan Splint
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An alternative to the SCI is a full arch hard plastic splint designed to achieve disclusion of the back teeth. This allows the jaw muscles that a activated by the back teeth to relax and is also an alternative to DTR treatment should this be excluded due to the bite being too open at the front or not chosen by the patient. In order to fit and properly balance the Michigan Splint the T-Scan is used to assess bite pressure and the bite on the splint is carefully adjusted until all movements are correctly refined. the splint is then repolished.
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Patients may find that the muscles relax after wearing the splint for a week or two and the bite on the splint has changed which would then require further adjustment to bring it back into balance.
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Treatment fee
A Michigan Splint costs £650 and would be made in two visits to Bliss Dental as it requires laboratory construction.
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