The Daily Grind: Treating Bruxism

Bruxism is the medical term for clenching or grinding you teeth. It’s incredibly common and can affect anyone, causing a wide range of problems even beyond your teeth and jaw joint, such as headaches and neck pain. But luckily it’s very easily treated!

Clenching or grinding your teeth can lead to issues such as tooth wear. A telltale sign is teeth becoming flatter, smaller and darker as the enamel is worn down, revealing the yellowish dentine underneath. Over time, due to the extra stress on the teeth, it can increase the likelihood of teeth cracking and breaking, and reduces the lifespan of dental restorations such as crowns and fillings. It can also cause problems with the jaw joint and muscles, such as pain, clicking or a crunching sound when opening or closing the mouth. In some cases the jaw can even ‘lock’ or go into spasm due to a long period of stress on the joint. 

Some people clench and grind their teeth while awake, however 80% of the time it occurs subconsciously during sleep. It’s usually associated with contributing factors, such as stress or anxiety. While asleep you will clench and grind your teeth with more force than you would whilst awake, and will do so for longer, as when you’re asleep you can’t stop yourself! Many patients do not realise if they grind their teeth at night, and come to see us complaining of worn down teeth, jaw pain, clicking or crunching, and teeth that break easily despite an excellent oral care routine. It can be a worrying to hear about the damage you are doing through bruxism without even realising, but there is a solution.  

At Butterfly Dental Care, we offer treatment to treat bruxism, called a splint, which will help to break your clenching and grinding habit. This is a plastic guard you wear over your teeth at night, which evens out the pressure across your jaw, relaxing and providing relief to the joint and muscles, and creates a physical barrier between your upper and lower teeth to protect them from further damage. They can also reduce any grinding noises you make at night. If you’ve noticed any symptoms of clenching or grinding your teeth, give us a call today and see how we can help you!

The effects of diet on teeth

Happy new year from Butterfly Dental! 
It’s that time of year again where many of us are a on a health kick, giving our diets a complete overhaul! But how many of us think about the effects of a new diet on our teeth?  Let’s take a look at the winners and losers...

The 5:2 Diet
This diet involves ‘fasting,’ restricting your calorie intake for two days a week by having one small meal per day, while eating normally on the other five days. In terms of dental health, teeth are more vulnerable to the frequency of sugar intake, as opposed to the amount. For example, eating a bag of sweets all in one go is better for the health of your mouth than eating them one by one throughout the course of the day. So, by reducing the frequency of meals on fast days, you’re also reducing the frequency of potential sugar intake, and as this diet places emphasis on making the sole meal on your fast days a healthy one, it’s likely you will be eating something low in sugar as well! 

Dukan Diet
This is a low-carb, high protein diet. This diet may help to reduce the chances of tooth decay as many foods high in carbohydrates, such as breads and cereals, can stick to the teeth for a while after eating and may be hard to remove.  However, eating a lot of protein increases the likelihood of bad breath, so watch out for this possible side-effect! 

Paleo Diet
This seems to be quite a popular diet at the moment. It involves removing foods from the diet that are unlikely to have been available to our prehistoric ancestors. This includes the removal of added sugar, which gets a massive thumbs-up from us, however it’s still important to watch out for the sugars that naturally occur in fruit. 

The Atkins Diet
This is another high-protein, low-carb diet. This is a good formula for healthy teeth and gums, but many of the recipes advise the dieter to add lemon or lime juice for flavouring, which is very acidic and can cause problems for tooth enamel. The diet also suggests other products as alternatives between meals, including chocolate bars, milkshakes and breakfast porridge, all of which have a very high sugar content and are not good for teeth. It would be more advisable to have fruit, nuts, water and milk as alternatives to help prevent any tooth decay and/or erosion.

The Alkaline/Acid Diet
This diet is based on separating food types. It advocates eating the same type of food type together, such as a bowl of fruit consisting of lemons and grapefruits with blended strawberries and blackberries. Although nutritionally very healthy, this could prove very erosive for teeth if carried out on a daily basis due to the high acid content of these foods. It also provides recipes which contain acidic dressings on top of many of the main meals, probably to provide taste. Again, the consequence of these being used on a repetitive basis could be quite harmful, and diluting them and using alternative dressings would be better.

The Cambridge Diet
This diet is similar to the Atkins diet, although bases itself on usage of its own products in the first few weeks of starting it. The products mainly consist of soups, shakes and porridge. The chocolate bars are advertised as chewy, and are syrup and caramel based, which could be difficult to remove from the teeth, and may cause problems! The diet promotes the use of herbal teas, and water flavouring, which could potentially lead to problems for tooth enamel such as acid erosion, which is a major cause of tooth sensitivity.
 
Choosing a diet to follow (if any), can be daunting and as we all know, they are notoriously hard to stick to! However it’s good to know that if you do choose to change your eating habits, your dentist will be happy as long as you keep your diet low in sugar and limit potentially damaging foods and drinks to mealtimes wherever possible. So don’t feel too bad about cheating the diet and grabbing some fish and chips instead of the salad!

Oral Hygiene Holiday Essentials

Your holiday is a time to unwind, see new places and try new experiences but it's important to maintain your usual oral hygiene routine. Keeping on top of gum and tooth health whilst away will keep you smiling where ever you go!

Items to pack:

Electric or manual toothbrush and carry case, most electric toothbrushes come with a handy carry case, with enough space for 2 heads!

Tooth paste, whether it’s a regular toothpaste, sensitive or a whitening one! We have sample size toothpastes available here for free, they’re small enough to be carried as hand luggage too!

Floss tape/sticks or TePe brushes, whatever your preference, remember to keep plaque at bay by flossing everyday whilst you’re away.

Mouth wash, for those after meal moments when you need to refresh your mouth, a 100ml bottle or smaller can be taken with you on the flight.

Night guard/splint, this is an essential item for all those night time grinders, don’t forget to pack yours to reduce the risk of causing any damage!

Don’t forget a hygienist appointment, a trip to the hygienist would be ideal to keep teeth and gums in tip top condition pre holiday, ready for all those holiday photos (selfie’s or otherwise!).

Make the most of the time away and remember to keep smiling, whatever the weather!