Good morning all my lovely blog readers. It has been a while since I have talked to you. I hope you all had a fun Labor Day weekend. Did you BBQ? Go out to the lake? Have some family visit? Ah….family visits. Does the simple thought of having relatives stay over for a 3 day weekend make your teeth clench? Well that is what we will be talking about today. Teeth clenching that is…not family visits.
Teeth clenching is often a habit you may have and not even know. It is especially common at night. So how do you know if you have this habit if you aren’t even aware of it? Well, do you ever wake up in the morning with a headache? Do you have a stiff or aching jaw, a sore neck, or sensitive teeth? If you said yes then you just may be clenching your teeth. The general rule is lips together teeth apart, if you find yourself with your teeth together during the day…catch yourself and quit doing it! But if you are doing it while you are sleeping, then how are you supposed to break that habit?
Well, the answer is an NTI. Technically, that means nocieptive trigeminal inhibition tension suppression system-but enough of that dental mumbo jumbo. What is an NTI in real words!
Teeth clenching is often a habit you may have and not even know. It is especially common at night. So how do you know if you have this habit if you aren’t even aware of it? Well, do you ever wake up in the morning with a headache? Do you have a stiff or aching jaw, a sore neck, or sensitive teeth? If you said yes then you just may be clenching your teeth. The general rule is lips together teeth apart, if you find yourself with your teeth together during the day…catch yourself and quit doing it! But if you are doing it while you are sleeping, then how are you supposed to break that habit?
Well, the answer is an NTI. Technically, that means nocieptive trigeminal inhibition tension suppression system-but enough of that dental mumbo jumbo. What is an NTI in real words!
An NTI is a mouth guard of sorts. You wear it at night. It is a small piece about 1 inch in length and 2 centimeters in width that fits over your two front teeth. It is then fitted to YOUR teeth (so not the same as generic mouth guard you would buy at Wal-Mart) and it snaps into place nice and tight so you can’t remove it with your tongue or lips at night and choke on it (I was worried about that!) so once you have it in and you bite down your back teeth cannot touch. You just wear it at night and since those back teeth can now not touch, you can’t work those muscles that cause migraines, sore jaws, and sore necks. I have included 2 pictures at the bottom of the post. One without my NTI and one with my NTI so you can get a better picture of how and where it fits. I have been wearing my NTI for about a year now, (and since I was taught “never say never”) I will say that I very rarely get headaches anymore, when “pre-NTI” I would wake up with headaches 2-3 times a week. Not waking up with headaches that last all day makes me a very happy girl and keeps my co-workers very happy also!
If you would like more information on this wonderful device that I won’t sleep without anymore you can visit www.headacheprevention.com or you can call me at the office and we can talk some more about it.
love, your friendly dental assistant, Denise
I never dreamed I'd be following a dental office blog, but this is informative and entertaining. Besides, I need to know when you make references to visiting relatives!
ReplyDeleteI have a mouthguard, too... but mine is a full one that goes over all my upper teeth. What is it called? If I don't wear it at night, I get the most horrible ear aches, like a knife being stabbed in my ears. Why would it make my ears hurt?
ReplyDeleteI love your blog!