Teeth Grinding

Bruxism, or the chronic grinding and clenching of teeth, can lead to numerous dental problems. Night time grinding can exert three to ten times the force of normal chewing. It can lead to sensitive, worn out, or fractured teeth; jaw pain; neck aches; earaches; headaches; or TMJ disorders. Dr. Denison provides the following treatments to alleviate the discomfort caused by Bruxism:

A Bruxism appliance is a hard acrylic guard custom-fitted to the patient's mouth. It prevents the top and bottom teeth, especially the back teeth, from coming into contact.
An NTI appliance is fitted in a single appointment. The small, clear, plastic appliance is worn between the two upper front teeth and the front bottom teeth. It triggers the mouth's natural instinct to avoid biting down on a hard object, thus preventing clenching of the upper and lower molars or canines. Since only the front teeth are engaged, the intensity of the patient's clenching is reduced to about a third, and grinding is eliminated altogether. Moreover, by preventing the intense contracting of the temporalis, the NTI has been shown to reduce migraines in 82 percent of migraine sufferers by 77 percent.