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Are there any techniques to prevent teeth grinding at night?

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My sister in law has to use a guard. She has since high school. your body gets used to it, you just gotta lean in and do it. That said, consult with your dentist, tell them of your problems so that they can make sure it's as optimal as possible.
I'm sure you have seen things like this video already that show you various options.
 
I am pretty sure we would all prefer to fix our health problems rather than adjusting our lives to just mitigate their effects, but sadly this isn't always advisable and/or possible.

I worked with a young man who had the same reaction as you when he learned that his vision was weakening. Rather than accept his need for glasses, he launched into a regime of vitamins and eye exercises that were supposed to restore him to 20/20 eye sight -- and meanwhile struggled more and more with reading and writing requirements of his job. He finally had to acknowledge that he needed glasses.

If you do decide to go down a similar less traveled (more speculative) path in the hopes of fixing your teeth grinding, I hope you and your dentist carefully track the damage to your teeth. You do not want to gamely keep reaching for fixes while you destroy your teeth. Good luck whatever you decide!
 
I was devastated when I found out I needed glasses in my teens, and hated every minute of being stuck with them. Always getting smudges, fogging up, glares from light sources, tunnel vision from frames beeing so small now days etc. So glad LASIK has come to the point it is today. Got that done years back and it's the best money I've spent.

I got a dentist appointment to see if they can maybe modify the mouthguard so it's not as invasive, or maybe give me another option. I hope I don't need to pay again though... I did not even get the bill for this one yet. I don't know how much my insurance covers. If it could be fixed so that my lips can close, I could MAYBE get used to it. Apparently the saliva issue slows down after a while so with those two issues fixed I could maybe get used to it. Only thing is when I have it on I also have no choice but to rest my teeth together because there's no room to leave a space so it could form the habit to get worse. Hopefully not though. I still want to try to fix it, even if I do end up using the mouthguard in the meantime I just want to eventually not need it anymore.

Also made an appointment with a naturopath to see what my options are for making the problem stop in first place. I was going to see a doctor but I feel a naturopath may actually be better for something of this nature. A doctor at most might prescribe me muscle relaxant meds or something, which is just another bandage. While that would be less invasive, don't really want to rely on that either given potential side effects.

Oddly enough because of covid it's so much easier getting appointment dates for stuff. Both of those appointments are tomorrow. Never in my life time have I been able to get an appointment for something the next day. It's usually a couple weeks at very least.
 
I'm getting closer to getting used to it, dentist shaved a bunch of material off which fixed the lip issue so that first night I lasted longer, but then it started to affect my gag reflex so I took it out and next day ended up shaving more material off in the back. I'm getting real close but ultimately after about 15 minutes I end up taking it out as it sends me into an odd panic mode. I have enough trouble as is falling asleep, so a huge obstruction like this will make it near damn impossible. I gave up for now, since I need to get a good nights sleep once in a while and this just keep me up at night due to the stress it's causing me. I will resume trying when I'm on night shifts, as I tend to be more tired then and fall asleep more easily. I'm hoping that if I can last a few full nights with it maybe it will be easier from there.

Only thing because it's so big I can't keep my teeth separated as it effectively forces my teeth together. I hope it won't somehow make the problem worse as I really don't want to become dependent on it, I still want to fix the underlying issue. Hopefully diet changes, working out more etc works long term, I also started taking more vitamins that are related to stress and my naturopath gave me some special ones too.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I'm getting closer to getting used to it, dentist shaved a bunch of material off which fixed the lip issue so that first night I lasted longer, but then it started to affect my gag reflex so I took it out and next day ended up shaving more material off in the back. I'm getting real close but ultimately after about 15 minutes I end up taking it out as it sends me into an odd panic mode. I have enough trouble as is falling asleep, so a huge obstruction like this will make it near damn impossible. I gave up for now, since I need to get a good nights sleep once in a while and this just keep me up at night due to the stress it's causing me. I will resume trying when I'm on night shifts, as I tend to be more tired then and fall asleep more easily. I'm hoping that if I can last a few full nights with it maybe it will be easier from there.

Only thing because it's so big I can't keep my teeth separated as it effectively forces my teeth together. I hope it won't somehow make the problem worse as I really don't want to become dependent on it, I still want to fix the underlying issue. Hopefully diet changes, working out more etc works long term, I also started taking more vitamins that are related to stress and my naturopath gave me some special ones too.
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You're talking like someone who just doesn't want to do what the doctor recommends and trying to come up with excuses why you don''t need to do so.
Your panic issues are in your head, I assume you know that. They could give you something for that to see if once you get past it you can without the drug.
I don't understand how a mouth guard designed to prevent your teeth from coming into contact is forcing your teeth to contact each other. you're not making sense there.

the point of the mouth guard is two-fold.
#1 - Stop the damage to the teeth. - get your teeth to stop grinding and that protects them.
#2 - reset the resting place for your jaw. - keeping your teeth apart can reset the natural resting point for your jaw, causing it to be more comfortable at a different angle.
 
Everything is "in your head". When you hurt yourself, guess what, that pain is "in your head". Broke your leg? Just walk it off it's in your head right?

This is impeding my sleep so it's not as easy as just "suck it up it's in your head". Try putting a couple golf balls in your mouth and see if you can fall asleep with that. This about what that feels like. It's a huge obstruction that just makes me too uncomfortable. I want to fix the underlying issue that is causing it in first place instead of just having to be stuck with this for the rest of my life.

I'm still trying to get used to it but been unsuccessful so far, I can't last more than 10 minutes before it just gets too irritating. I rather just figure out a way to stop the grinding in first place. This is not going to fix that, and it may even make it worse as it basically forces my jaw in an unnatural position by prying it in a more open position so it can't really go in a relaxed state. I wish I could just get used to it but I can't so far. It's just too intrusive.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Everything is "in your head". When you hurt yourself, guess what, that pain is "in your head". Broke your leg? Just walk it off it's in your head right?

This is impeding my sleep so it's not as easy as just "suck it up it's in your head". Try putting a couple golf balls in your mouth and see if you can fall asleep with that. This about what that feels like. It's a huge obstruction that just makes me too uncomfortable. I want to fix the underlying issue that is causing it in first place instead of just having to be stuck with this for the rest of my life.

I'm still trying to get used to it but been unsuccessful so far, I can't last more than 10 minutes before it just gets too irritating. I rather just figure out a way to stop the grinding in first place. This is not going to fix that, and it may even make it worse as it basically forces my jaw in an unnatural position by prying it in a more open position so it can't really go in a relaxed state. I wish I could just get used to it but I can't so far. It's just too intrusive.
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You can't retrain your jaw, especially in something like your sleep. You may need to talk to the doctor about prescribing a muscle relaxant and sedative to help you sleep at night until you get more used to it.

You can certainly work on other things in the background, like meditation prior to sleep, relaxants like CBD/etc, and focusing on your jaw position while awake, but if you actually want to protect your teeth, you should listen to your doctor and find a way to make it work, not just continue in the way you have been.

Spend more time with it on while awake - that's the only way you're going to get used to it. And making analogies to breaking a leg being the same mental "in your brain" as a mouthguard is completely incorrect. You're uncomfortable, you're not in pain. It isn't your nerves telling you "hey, we're fucked up" its your response to a stimulus. No different than claustrophobia or other fears, which you can absolutely train away.
 
deadlyapp said:
No different than claustrophobia or other fears, which you can absolutely train away.
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Huh you can't train away phobias. They are that, phobias. That's a dumb analogy. I dare you to throw a spider at someone who is scared of them and tell them "it's all in your head". Or try to convince someone afraid of heights to go on a really tall ride because "it's not real". Fear is something that is real. So is being uncomfortable. To be able to successfully fall asleep one has to be comfortable. If you have something constantly irritating you it's near impossible. Unless you're one of those people that can just fall asleep right away then good for you but it usually takes me a few hours to fall asleep so adding a huge obstruction in m mouth just makes it worse. Going to try again during my night shifts as I tend to fall asleep more easily but either way I really don't want this to be my fate for the rest of my life, there has got to be a better way.

I do wonder if CBD would help, I might go buy some just to see. That or even edibles, probably be cheaper.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Huh you can't train away phobias.
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Pretty sure that they've been documented as having been trained away, in some cases.

I believe Agorophobia (fear of heights, right?), has been treated with VR sessions.

The mind is a powerful thing, and to say that you "can't" train away things, given that nearly everything that the mind experiences is, at some level, a "learned experience", doesn't seem right to me.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Huh you can't train away phobias. They are that, phobias. That's a dumb analogy. I dare you to throw a spider at someone who is scared of them and tell them "it's all in your head". Or try to convince someone afraid of heights to go on a really tall ride because "it's not real". Fear is something that is real. So is being uncomfortable. To be able to successfully fall asleep one has to be comfortable. If you have something constantly irritating you it's near impossible. Unless you're one of those people that can just fall asleep right away then good for you but it usually takes me a few hours to fall asleep so adding a huge obstruction in m mouth just makes it worse. Going to try again during my night shifts as I tend to fall asleep more easily but either way I really don't want this to be my fate for the rest of my life, there has got to be a better way.

I do wonder if CBD would help, I might go buy some just to see. That or even edibles, probably be cheaper.
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You are absolutely wrong but that's fine. Phobias and fears can absolutely be conditioned out of a person with the proper work. Yeah if someone has a fear of heights then you're not going to throw them out of a plane and say they're cured, but saying the blanket statement of well its there, no fixing it now is completely wrong.
 
Well yeah maybe with some very complicated psychological means, kinda like trying to condition a homosexual to not be homosexual, it might be doable, but it's not exactly conventional and it's not going to work on everybody. It's all weird brain trickery and stuff and not exactly something easy to do at all. Long story short you can't just tel someone who is uncomfortable or in pain to "well stop being uncomfortable". It does not work that way. Brain stuff is 1000x harder to fix than physical stuff. Dismissing something as "it's just in the head" is an invalid response.
 
I was once afraid of vacuum cleaners. After a while, I stopped yelling at them when they were on and now I'm better.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I recently found out that I am grinding my teeth at night. So dentist got me fitted for a night guard, but honestly, I just can't fathom being stuck with this for the rest of my life. I have yet to spend a whole night with it, it's just too uncomfortable having something this bulky in my mouth, and it makes me salivate a lot so I'm worried I'm going to wakeup to a huge puddle of drool all over the bed, or choke on my own saliva if I sleep on my back. It was fitted properly and they've checked it out and all so there is nothing wrong with it, it's just me, I really don't like having it in my mouth it's just not comfortable.

I want to figure out other options. Is there anything I can do to simply stop the grinding from happening in first place? I imagine this must be a somewhat mental health related thing, like stress. I don't really feel stressed but maybe internally I am. Any vitamins/foods I should be trying to get more of, or less of? Ex: coffee, should I reduce intake? What about vitamin B12 would that be a good idea to take? Could some form of muscle relaxant help? Basically, is there any kind of life style change I can make that can somehow affect it, and make it stop?

I googled and found a couple things like some mouth exercises you can do before bed. I also caught myself clenching in the day, without realizing, so I'm trying to be more concious of how my jaw/teeth are positioned so that I keep the teeth separate and same at night when I'm trying to fall asleep I make sure my teeth are not touching, so I'm hoping that by doing this in the day might help at night too?

Any other ideas?
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Hypnosis can actually work for relatively simple, (I'm guessing) probably psychological, problems.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Well yeah maybe with some very complicated psychological means, kinda like trying to condition a homosexual to not be homosexual, it might be doable, but it's not exactly conventional and it's not going to work on everybody. It's all weird brain trickery and stuff and not exactly something easy to do at all. Long story short you can't just tel someone who is uncomfortable or in pain to "well stop being uncomfortable". It does not work that way. Brain stuff is 1000x harder to fix than physical stuff. Dismissing something as "it's just in the head" is an invalid response.
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Woof, comparing sexuality to a psychiatric response. I'm out.
 
deadlyapp said:
Woof, comparing sexuality to a psychiatric response. I'm out.
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Both are "just in the head". Was just showing how ridiculous that statement is. You can't just dismiss a feeling of discomfort or pain etc, just like you can't dismiss a sexual attraction.

Anyway a bit more back on topic, been taking more vitamin D, B, ashwagandha among my regular set of vitamins. The ashwagandha is suppose to help so I'll see what happens. Overall been trying to just be more conscious of it during the day too as I sometimes catch myself doing it. Really hoping I can make it stop at night, but it's hard to know if it's even happening or not so will be hard to tell what works and what does not. Some mornings I do wake with a sore jaw so probably means it was happening, while some mornings it's not sore at all so means it was not happening, at least I'm guessing. That's the other reason I want to find a way to actually fix it. Even if I get used to the mouth guard it's not going to stop the fact that it's happening and will still be hard on the jaw and eventually lead to other complications. I just want a fix not a bandage.
 
My dentist maintained that only a night guard prevents bruxism (teeth grinding). I have my doubts. I couldn't get used to my night guard. I had him work on it several times, I never was able to wear it without chewing the inside of my cheek. My mouth would be sore inside.

I still think you can hypnotize yourself into not grinding your teeth. Well, maybe to some extent, anyway. My dentist insisted that everyone does this and you can't stop it. He may be right, I don't know. He may have read studies in the prestigious journals, for all I know, but my intuition tells me a person has some control. Of course, my opinion may be worthless. But then "what is proved today was once only imagined." - William Blake
 
I think when it comes to the medical world, they go for the easiest thing that they know will work for everyone but it may not always be the best for the patient. Yeah, a night guard will help to protect the teeth, but it will not actually stop the real problem which may just grow worse over time. For example it can lead to jaw issues and head aches - not to mention the idea of being stuck with that thing for the rest of your life is very inconvenient. I still can't get used to it, it's just too big of an obstruction to my comfort and I just can't fall asleep if I'm not comfortable.

If your car is making a very annoying sound you can turn the radio up to block it, but the problem is still there.

This is not an easy one but it is something to do with the mind that needs to somehow be rewired. Though perhaps there are other factors at play like nutrition too. Not enough of a certain vitamin, or too much of something (like caffeine?). Been starting to take more vitamins that I normally take, like B, Magnesium and Zinc which I did not take before, or really even know of.

Also I may need to reduce caffeine intake as from reading it looks like that can be a contributor too. I like my coffee, and it's what I used to replace pop, but maybe I need to look into caffeine free tea. There's always decaf coffee too but I think that comes with other issues due to the process used to remove it. Of course, drinking more water may help too but I tend to drink plenty, I just like something else too.

But yeah if I absolutely can't get to the bottom of this I'll just have to keep trying to get used to the guard, but I really do want to find a way to fix the issue instead of masking it.
 
Are you using an upper or lower nightguard? Both options exist. I also suffer from Bruxism (grinding at night) and switching to an upper nightguard has been infinitely more comfortable for me.

The causes for everyone can be different. I think reducing stress and maybe performing some stretches for your upper back/shoulders/neck before bed might help.

From skimming this thread my onset was probably similar to yours, started at a very stressful time in my life and also not realizing I was clenching so much throughout the day.

A mental cue that really helped me is that "your teeth should only touch when you're eating". Throughout the day it helped me to try to remember to keep my mouth slightly open like that, using the tongue to set a bit of space. That felt really weird for a good long time, but that combined with religiously wearing the nightguard and I basically don't clench anymore.

If you're a heavy grinder you'll almost certainly cause permanent damage to your teeth. If you wear through the layer of enamel it will never regenerate and you'll have exposed dentin that will lead to extreme sensitivity and just begin wearing down faster and faster. You'd need crowns or inlays on those teeth at that point for a proper fix.

I'm all for holistic solutions, but that's the opinion from someone who kinda wishes they started wearing the nightguard sooner 🙂
 
The one I have is upper. Been trying to get used to it but gave up for now. I need to sleep. I just can't fall asleep unless I'm comfortable and having something that feels like a hockey puck in the mouth sure is not comfortable. After a while it also starts to activate the gag reflex and a panic mode which makes me NEED to remove it. I may try a bottom one to see if that's somehow better. I do wonder if grinding off more excess material might work but I don't really want to modify it too much either.

I think I clench more than grind, but hard to really know for sure. I can usually tell if I did it since I'll wake up with a sore jaw. Sometimes I even immediately wake up while falling asleep because the clench will happen right away and cause me to wake up. It's almost like a muscle twitch reaction that just holds the teeth together really hard. I've even woken up where it was stuck that way and I had to forcefully open with my hand. Been a long time since that has happened though I just kind of remembered that now. This has probably been going on for longer than I realize now that I think of it.

I have been trying to be more aware of it during the day, and avoid putting my teeth together and try to keep tounge touching roof of mouth which apparently can help. I will need to see a doctor or maybe a chiro about this too though, I think the clenching is also doing damage to my jaw, the right side just does not feel right and does lot of cracking noises. So even if I did manage to get used to the guard I'd still need to make this stop as it's still causing damage to the jaw.

I wonder if CBD oil could help too, I may try it just to see, I think it can act as a natural muscle relaxant. That would only be a temporary fix though, don't really want to become reliant on anything like that as it may eventually not be effective anymore or have other effects.
 
So I managed to last the whole night with the mouth guard, twice. Last night was close but I ended up taking it off around 6am or so. I tend to wake up with super nasty bad breath, so having that in the mouth just makes it even worse as far as comfort goes. Took it out and used mouth wash and went back to bed. Definitly don't want to be stuck with this for rest of my life but if I can at least last the night with it for the time being while I can figure out how to fix the real problem at least it will protect my teeth.

I do want to see a doctor and/or chiropractor to see what they can do from a jaw perspective as the grinding is causing damage to my jaw which is probably in turn making the grinding worse. My right side is pretty much in constant pain now, not super painful but definitely something. So I may need to go on some muscle relaxants for a while to give it a chance to heal or something.

I may try CBD as well and see if that helps.
 
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FWIW, I commend you for persevering with the mouth guard. It sounds like you aren't too far away from becoming adjusted to sleeping with it, and perhaps you will get some pain relief soon. 👍
 
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