How to Prevent TMD using Dental Night Guards?

If you are a dental patient, you may have heard of temporomandibular disorder or TMD. This dental condition can cause pain in the jaw and temples and can be very disruptive to your daily life. In this blog post, we will explain what TMD is, and discuss how night guards can help prevent it.

What is a Temporomandibular Disorder?

TMD is a condition that affects the temporomandibular joint, or TMJ. This joint connects the jawbone to the skull. TMD occurs when the TMJ becomes inflamed or injured.

Symptoms of TMD:

• Pain in the jaw and temples
• Difficulty opening your mouth wide
• Clicking or popping noises when you move your jaw
• Headaches

TMD can be triggered by a traumatic event or injury to the jaw, but it also appears in people who grind their teeth during sleep. Unfortunately, many people with TMD are unaware that they grind their teeth at night.

How to treat TMD?

Our dentist in Glendale, Dr. Leo Aghajanian, recommends wearing night guards to prevent TMD caused by teeth grinding and clenching during sleep. These are thin, custom-made mouth protectors that cover the upper teeth of a patient. Our dentist can create custom night guards using impressions of the patients' teeth, which are then sent to a dental lab to create the mouth protectors.

Dr. Aghajanian's recommendation is to wear night guards every night for six months to a year after patients receive them to allow the condition to heal completely. Dr. Aghajanian also recommends the use of hard acrylic night guards as they discourage your muscles from contracting as hard when grinding and clenching through natural reflexes while asleep, versus soft or flexible ones that conversely encourage you to clench even harder due to the chewy nature of the soft material.

If you think you might suffer from TMD, call us at Precision Dental to schedule an appointment with our dentist in Glendale Dr. Aghajanian. We can help alleviate your pain and prevent further damage to your teeth through the use of night guards! For more information, follow this link: https://ddsglendale.com/tmj-disorder-glendale