When you have jaw pain, facial aches, and headaches, this could be due to a disorder with your smile. Our team can diagnose and treat issues like TMJ disorder and bruxism (teeth grinding) with a comfortable and noninvasive solution. In today’s blog, your Astoria, NY, dentist talks about oral appliances and improving your smile’s comfort and health, so you avoid major complications.
The Signs of TMD and Bruxism
With TMJ disorder, stress on your jaw joints can cause discomfort and eventually, even complicate how you open and close your mouth. With bruxism, you grind and clench your teeth nightly, which wears down and damages teeth, causing discomfort and poor oral health. While these are separate concerns, one often increases the risk of the other, and they share many symptoms. You may notice jaw and facial pain, headaches and migraines, popping or clicking your jaw, and toothaches and tooth sensitivity. When you experience one or more symptoms like these, then contact our team right away for a diagnosis!
Causes and Complications
Often, these are brought on by factors that upset bite balance, such as injury to the face or jaw, complications with the growth of your jaw or the eruption of your teeth, wisdom tooth eruption, missing teeth, and dental misalignment. High stress levels in your daily life could be a factor too. Without treatment, this can worsen painful symptoms and the risk of tooth decay and infection can increase, which threatens smile stability. Don’t let this happen, especially when we can offer a noninvasive and comfortable solution to these disorders.
Treatment with an Oral Appliance
Our team will gather detailed digital images of your smile and jaw with intraoral cameras and digital x-rays, so we can make a diagnosis with precision and use the information to design and craft an oral appliance. The device will look and fit much like a simple mouthguard, and is worn as you sleep. The device repositions the jaw to ease the strain behind your TMJ concerns, and also places a barrier between the upper and lower teeth to prevent further damage from bruxism. If you have damaged teeth, we can discuss repair with dental bonding or even a custom crown, so you enjoy a strong, healthy, and beautiful smile.
If you have any questions about how we diagnose and treat concerns like TMJ disorder and bruxism, then contact our team today. We want to help you smile with confidence and enjoy a smile free of painful symptoms.
SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT FOR AN ORAL APPLIANCE
Our team wants to help you enjoy good oral health and a smile free of discomfort and injury. You can schedule an appointment by calling our office in Astoria, NY at 718-728-8320. Our team offers family dentistry to help you and your loved ones enjoy your best possible smiles.
