I grind my teeth at night. Hard. My dentist’s eyes go wide when he sees the marks I make on my bite guard. I probably won’t crack any teeth in the next few weeks, but I will over the next couple decades, and I plan to live for 50-60 more years. I need help.
Dentists don’t know how to stop sleep bruxism. The best they’ve got are these devices that focus the grind onto your front teeth so that you can’t grind as hard. I’ve been told that this would train me to stop grinding but it did not.
The various other treatments have little to no backing research or apparent success: CBT, benzos, other drugs, hypnotherapy, biofeedback, Botox injections.
Have you overcome nighttime tooth grinding or do you know anyone who has? Please let me know how. You can email me at nathensmiraculousescape@gmail.com. Thanks!
Nathen's Miraculous Escape 
July 18, 2013 at 4:17 pm
I grind, too. I find that it is worst when I’m stressed (duh!) and best when I’m relaxed. The heavier I sleep, the less I grind (but I’m generally a light sleeper, so grind a lot). I find I don’t grind as much if I have a full feeling at night, so I often have a glass of milk right before bed. I have found also that if I get my teeth cleaned by the hygienist 3-4 a year, I don’t grind as much. I have some chronic health issues that make getting my teeth cleaned that often worthwhile anyway, so I keep it up and I don’t grind as much. None of this really solves the problem, but at least are things you can consider.
July 18, 2013 at 6:07 pm
I wish I had something concrete to say. I grind my teeth too, but for me it’s directly correlated to stress. Fix the stressor, it mostly subsides.
I had to learn to place my tongue differently for another problem — that I was pushing out my bottom teeth — and using that technique helped a bit with the bruxism too.
I also grind less in certain positions sleeping, and with what pillow. If I have something firm (like my buckwheat hull pillow), I grind less.
July 18, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Do you grind your teeth all throughout the night, or mostly early in the night? Perhaps it is related to your daily cortisol cycle, which a good naturopath can help reguarize if abnormal (rhodiola root extract).
July 18, 2013 at 10:13 pm
Hmm. I’m not sure how to figure that out. Maybe I could persuade Reanna to stay up all night and make a log of my grinding. I’d like to get a sense of where my cortisol levels are at throughout the day, but it sounds expensive. Have you done that, David?
July 20, 2013 at 8:56 am
I have no done that. The typical lab work is not expensive but only measures 3 or 4 samples in a day, and only during the day when you stop by the lab.
My naturopath put me on rhodiola as a “might as well try this” appropach to the problem of acting more stressed than my lifestyle warranted, since it is very inexpensive and he could see it would not interact badly with any of the few other things I was taking. It worked — I become more relaxed and even stopped the habit I had since high school of picking at my upper lip.
Cortisol normally spikes in the early morning: it is what our body uses to wake us up. The spike takes about an hour, about half before we wake without an alarm and finishing half an hour after waking. Then cortisol level decreases throughout the day.
But the kinds of tension that we feel in our body but are not adrenaline rushes are often situational cortisol spikes: traffic stress while driving, test anxiety, etc.
And then some people (like myself apparently) have bodies that simply do not regulate it well for some reason.
I have no confidence at all that cortisol relates to your teeth grinding. I just know that John mentioned having more grinding when stressed, and that cortisol is a “stress hormone” that is a possible culprit and inexpensive to test and get better regulated if necessary. I’m not much of a doctor linking one friend’s experiences and my own experiences when suggesting possible help for you!