What Does a Night Guard Do and the Benefits of Wearing It?

If you’ve never complained about having severe headaches or a sore jaw but start experiencing these problems, it might be bruxism. Bruxism is when you clench, grind or gnash your teeth. Suppose the teeth clenching happens when you wake up; it’s called awake bruxism. When you clench your teeth when asleep is referred to as sleep bruxism.

One of the major reasons for bruxism is stress. When bruxism happens at night, you’re usually unconscious, so effects like headaches might be hard to point to bruxism. Unfortunately, there’s no known cure for bruxism condition. Although it’s challenging to stop the causes of teeth clenching and grinding, you can eliminate its negative effects by wearing a night guard.

What is a Night guard?

This retainer is like a plastic piece that is soft or hard. A night guard helps cover the biting surfaces that may be worn on either the top or bottom set of teeth. Since people have different teeth patterns, the night guard is custom-made for each person. This is through molding to fit one’s teeth without the risk of being unnecessarily bulky or uncomfortable.

What Does a Night guard Do?

Adults and children might need a night guard. Your dentist near you recommends night guards to:

Prevent Development of Plaque

Although night guards have many names, you shouldn’t confuse a sports mouth guard with the one designed to prevent bruxism. A sports mouth guard can do more harm than good. The guard covers the gums and teeth as it’s meant to protect them from blunt force trauma. If you wear a mouth guard at night, it traps bacteria on the surface of the gums while you sleep. However, saliva won’t get to the gums while you wear a sports mouth guard.

Saliva helps neutralize the acids that cause and wash away food particles to prevent plaque development. Therefore, it’s best to consult our dentist Auburn when looking for a night guard to avoid damaging your teeth. It’s essential to be aware that some night guards come with holes for allowing the saliva to access the teeth. Thus, your dentist provides you with the right design based on the condition of your teeth.

Prevents Changing Your Bite

A night guard is normally fitted to the teeth and bite because its goal is to protect the surfaces from clenching and grinding against each other.

Types of Night Guards

There are two types of night guards available in Central Park Dental Care. They include:

Hard Night Guards

These are used to treat severe teeth grinding, TMJ and clenching. As your muscles relax, the bite will change due to the lower jaw positioning itself in a healthy position. Adjusting your bite on the guard helps your jaw and muscles relax.

Custom-Made Night Guards

Night guards are custom-made to fit in one’s unique mouth and teeth shape. Your dentist in 36830 makes an impression of the teeth, and the custom mouth guard is molded over the model using a specific type of plastic.

Over-the-Counter Night Guards

Drug stores and pharmacies sell over-the-counter night guards, which are pre-molded to fit every mouth.

Benefits of Night Guards

Night guards from our dental office in Auburn help with several sleep time behaviors that are hard on your teeth and mouth.

Prevent Teeth Damage

Since you’re not in control when teeth grinding happens, the more it happens, the more one subjects their teeth to loss of enamel. Enamel erosion causes your teeth to be over-sensitive. In addition, when the enamel is not protecting your teeth, they become more susceptible to decay.

Teeth grinding also causes damage by fracturing your weak tooth and wearing out any fillings. The teeth’s surface handles the pressure associated with chewing, but the additional stress of grinding teeth is not sustainable. This results in tooth cracks or fractures

Prevents Temporomandibular Joint Disorder

As one clenches their teeth in sleep, they apply pressure to the TMJ, which might cause misalignment. When misaligned, one develops a TMJ dysfunction. The disorder causes pain around your ear, difficulty chewing, and headaches. One can also damage their articular disk, which is irreparable and may cause disk displacement. Getting a night guard for dental treatment in Auburn helps prevent the disorder’s development. This’s because it eases any tension one can cause on the muscles.