How Does a Nightguard Protect Your Smile?

Grinding and clenching your teeth in your sleep, a chronic condition known as bruxism, can place stress on your teeth, dental work, and jaws, impacting your smile and your comfort. Our team at Highlight Family Dentistry may recommend a custom oral appliance, known as a night guard or occlusal splint, to provide cushioning between the upper and lower arches, helping protect your smile.

What Are the Impacts of Bruxism?

While some patients grind and clench their teeth during the day, many do so in their sleep, often without realizing it. They often learn about it from a sleep partner or when their dentist sees warning signs of bruxism during a routine dental exam.

The impacts of bruxism may include the following:

• Tooth Wear and Damage: Bruxism can leave you with worn-down, flattened teeth, chipped, cracked, or otherwise damaged teeth.
• Damaged Dental Restorations: The forces of grinding and clenching can damage dental work, including veneers, crowns, and implants.
• Tooth Sensitivity: As the tooth enamel wears down, your teeth may develop heightened sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures.
• Jaw Strain and Facial Pain: Teeth grinding and clenching can strain the jaw muscles, leading to soreness, stiffness, or TMJ discomfort, and facial pain when you wake up.
• Morning Headaches: The constant strain on your jaw and surrounding muscles can leave you with morning headaches, especially near your temples.
• Loose or Tender Teeth: Excessive pressure over time may leave the teeth feeling tender or, in some cases, contribute to tooth mobility. 
• Sleep Disruptions: Sleep bruxism is often linked to sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, impacting your quality of sleep and leaving you feeling tired throughout your day.

While there is no clear cause for bruxism, it may be linked to sleep apnea, stress, anxiety, missing or misaligned teeth, or certain medications. The sooner you seek care, the better the long-term outcomes for your smile.

How Can a Night Guard Prevent the Impacts of Bruxism?

A night guard is an oral appliance worn over your top or bottom teeth as you sleep. While it’s not a cure for bruxism, it provides cushioning and acts as a protective shield, helping absorb the forces of grinding and clenching. Preventing tooth-to-tooth contact can help reduce the risk of tooth wear and damage and can protect dental restorations such as veneers, crowns, and implants. Patients report fewer morning headaches and relief from jaw soreness and TMJ pain. Wearing a night guard consistently helps restore your comfort and protect your smile.

Why Choose a Custom Dental Lab Night Guard and Not an Over-the-Counter Mouthguard?

You’ll find over-the-counter night guard boil-and-bite varieties and do-it-yourself kits, which promise comfort and protection for your smile. However, these generic oral appliances are not just bulky and uncomfortable, their softness can sometimes make clenching and grinding worse. Because they fail to distribute the force of your bite evenly throughout the guard, they often aggravate your bruxism. Because generic options are bulky and poorly fitted, many patients find it hard to keep them in place through the night. Moreover, generic mouthguards can impact the balance of your bite, increasing the risk of TMJ-related discomfort.

When it comes to a custom night guard, our team at Highlight Family Dentistry creates your oral appliance from digital impressions of your teeth, providing a precise, comfortable fit. Our custom mouthguards are effective in protecting your smile because they are sturdy enough to absorb the forces of grinding and clenching. Investing in a custom night guard is an investment in your long-term oral health.

Night Guards Near Me in Hutto, TX

If you have symptoms of bruxism or if you’ve been alerted by a family member that you grind and clench your teeth as you sleep, our team at Highlight Family Dentistry of Hutto is here for you. We may recommend a custom night guard to protect your smile, restore your comfort, and enhance your overall quality of life. We invite you to call (512) 886-2644 to schedule an appointment or book one online today!