Bruxism Basics

If you grind, clench, or gnash your teeth at any point during the day, you may have a case of bruxism. Mild bruxism may not require treatment but if it causes chipped teeth or painful jaw problems, Dr. Paul Bernstein of Bernstein Dental Care may suggest a night guard. Though bruxism usually occurs during sleep, you may subconsciously clench your teeth while awake. Regardless of the cause, Dr. Bernstein can treat the problem.


People who grind their teeth may be unaware of the problem because bruxism typically occurs during sleep. Bruxism can develop as a coping mechanism for stress and anxiety or it may be the result of a misaligned bite or missing teeth. This condition can have many consequences because the grinding may wear down tooth enamel or lead to painfully broken fillings. If you wake up with pain in your jaw or suspect that you are a victim of bruxism, please give us a call to discuss your treatment options.


If you have questions or concerns related to bruxism, please give us a call. To learn about the services we provide, visit www.bernsteindentalcare.com for more information. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Paul Bernstein of Bernstein Dental Care in Brooklyn, NY, call 718-833-9191.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mini Implants

Are you searching for a way to replace your teeth that won’t leave you with an extremely long recovery time or unstable denture? It sounds like you could use mini-implants. Available at the Bay Ridge office of Bernstein Dental Care, this technology allows us to secure full and partial dentures to a patient’s jaw through minimally invasive techniques. A typical implant is over three millimeters wide and supports a single tooth or part of a bridge. Those are highly effective, but they are not suitable for situations in which a patient has lost a great deal of jaw bone material or needs to replace multiple teeth that aren’t in a row. Mini-implants are less than three millimeters wide and their strength is derived from their length instead of their width. They can often be inserted without incisions and have a much faster osseointegration process, being able to bear the distributed weight of a denture immediately, whereas traditional implants needed several months to stabilize. The abutmen
Read more

Dental Avulsion - Traumatic Tooth Loss

During the summer, people tend to be more active outdoors and may be at greater risk for dental injuries. While nobody ever plans to get a tooth knocked out, we at Bernstein Dental Care thought it would be a good idea to remind our patients of what steps they can take during a dental emergency to have the best chance of preserving their teeth. When a tooth is knocked out entirely, we call that a “dental avulsion.” The tooth should be lifted by its crown, never its root. There are American Dental Association-approved tooth transport containers that will hopefully be available in a nearby first aid kit, but if not, the tooth should be rinsed with a saline solution. It should then be reinserted into the empty socket, with care to ensure it is facing the right way. If this is too uncomfortable, it may be held in the cheek or in a glass of milk or saltwater, but the patient should have facial lacerations attended to first. We can determine whether a tooth is salvageable. It may not be if th
Read more

Bad Habits for Teeth

Bad habits are hard to break. When it comes to your teeth, habits such as biting your nails, using your teeth as tools, and brushing aggressively will do more harm to your teeth than good. Dr. Paul Bernstein of Bernstein Dental Care is here to encourage patients to break these bad habits. Additional tasks that harm your teeth are listed below. If one or more seems all too familiar, schedule a consultation today. You’re brushing too hard – over time, if you brush with too much force, you can wear down the protective layers of your teeth and expose the microscopic hollow tubes or canals that lead to your dental nerves. When these tubules are exposed, tooth sensitivity is a result. You’re eating too many acidic foods – If the pathways to your nerves are exposed, acidic foods will cause you pain. You have tooth decay – If you have tooth decay, it’s easy for bacteria to accumulate in these tiny crevices, which causes acid build-up and enamel breakdown
Read more