The Right Bite Sleep and TMJ Pain Care
One of the prominent symptoms of bruxism is wear and tear of the teeth leading to probable tooth sensitivity. A mouthguard can only protect the teeth from further wear and tear of the teeth. It cannot protect the person from a sleep apnea related death or bruxism related TMJ pain. It would not stop the bruxism from happening, just the wear and tear. Because unless the mouthguard is fabricated to keep the airway open, the ensuing oxygen desaturations will continue to create bruxing events.
The enamel on the teeth are the most hardest material in the body; even more than bone. If a human being is buried and you exhume the body after a thousand years, only the teeth would remain. Thus it’s usefulness in forensics. If the teeth are so hard that they can last so long, why do you think there is wear and tear in 10 or 20 or 30 years of your life? Such is the force of airway related bruxism.
As an example, when we throw a ball, one would exert roughly 50-70 micV muscle force. When we clench during awake time, the force would be around 150-200 micV. But during sleep, the clenching force goes even 3 times that. I have seen night clenching of upto 1250 micV. This would damage not only the teeth but the muscles holding the jaw and then finally the TMJ.
This is why we heavily depend on the Home Sleep Test as a diagnostic tool. We use both the Type 2 (Sleepiz/Phillips) and the Type 3 GemPro. Our treatment protocols would depend on the results of these tests.
I heavily rely on the GemPro as it provides accurate data on bruxing events with the oxygen desaturations. When I talk to patients, I tell them that the only reason I got into treating sleep apnoea is because 90% of those patients brux. Neither did the patients in pain ever know they had apnoea nor did the apnoea patients know that their headaches were TMJ related.
The human body functions as 1 unit, inter-connected with several systems. All systems need to work together in synergy; or else there will be compromise. This compromise leads to disease.
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