TMJ disorder, sometimes referred to as TMD, occurs hen the joints that connect your jaw and skull are strained, which can cause a disorder linked to serious discomfort and even complications with opening and closing your mouth. The issue can be brought on factors that stress your bite balance, such as tooth loss, injury, misalignment, untreated teeth grinding, or issues with the growth of your smile to the development of your jaw. Wisdom tooth extraction could be factor too. Without care, this is linked to headaches and migraines, jaw and facial pain, neck and shoulder aches, and popping or clicking in your smile.
With bruxism, you grind and clench your teeth on a nightly basis, which places serious pressure on the teeth, wearing them down to make them appear short and uneven. This can also crack and chip the outer structure to make your smile more vulnerable to issues like tooth decay and infection. Causes could be linked to high stress levels on your daily life, missing teeth, malocclusion, TMJ disorder, and injury. The warning signs include toothaches and tooth sensitivity, pain when you eat, aches in your face and jaw, and headaches and migraines.
Our team will start treatment with an examination to assess the wear and function on your teeth, and examine the overall balance of your bite or identify the factors that have upset the balance. We can then create a custom treatment plan. For some, we could correct misalignment with braces or aligners, or replace missing teeth with a prosthetic. Still others may benefit from bonding or crowns to improve overall bite balance. But the most common solution is an oral appliance.
The device is crafted based on the detailed digital images and impressions we take of your smile from multiple angles, so we can create an appliance with precision. The device will fit much like a mouthguard and is worn as you sleep. Once in place, the device will gently reposition the jaw to ease strain, and apply a barrier between the upper and lower teeth to prevent further damage to your smile.
If you have any questions about how we treat TMJ disorder and bruxism, then contact our team today.
We want to ease the jaw pain and headaches related to untreated concerns like TMD or teeth grinding. To schedule a diagnostic visit, call Gentle Smiles in Dallas, TX today at 972-329-7645.
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