Dental nightguards are dental appliances that protect your teeth while you’re sleeping. These custom-made appliances also promote sleep and ease certain aches and pains caused by teeth grinding, a common problem among adults and children.
Many people do not realize just how poor the quality of their sleep is – and how much better they can feel during the day – until they try wearing a dental nightguard.
Dental Nightguards Provide a Variety of Health Benefits
Protects your teeth from damage
You might clench or grind your teeth while asleep and not even know it. When you are sleeping, you cannot perceive how strongly you are biting down, so you might clench your teeth more tightly. In fact, you may put as much as 250 pounds of force on your teeth, and this tremendous force can do some serious damage to your pearly whites.
A dental nightguard acts like a cushion to prevent any contact between your top teeth and bottom teeth.
Reducing jaw tension and pain
Clenching and grinding your teeth at night can cause jaw tension and pain, both at night and during the day. Also known as sleep bruxism, clenching and grinding your teeth at night involve the muscles used for chewing. These muscles are situated in your jaw and at your temple, where your jawbone meets your skull. After misusing these muscles all night to clench and grind your teeth, they are stiff and tired the next day.
Dental nightguards help prevent overuse of the chewing muscles to ease jaw tension and pain.
Helps prevent headaches
Do you ever wake up with a headache? If so, you may be clenching your jaw and grinding your teeth while you sleep. The cushioning action of a dental nightguard can help you wake up headache-free.
Better-aligned teeth
Clenching and grinding can push your teeth out of position. This is especially true if you are missing teeth, as the remaining teeth easily move into the gap left by missing teeth when under the pressure of bruxism.
Dental nightguards help protect your teeth and reduce the risk that they’ll fall out, which decreases the chances that your remaining teeth will drift out of their optimal position on your jaw.
Healthier sleep patterns
The pain of bruxism can wake you up several times throughout the night. Ending the teeth grinding can help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep. In other words, using a dental nightguard can help you get the sleep you need to wake up feeling rested and refreshed every morning.
Helps to stop snoring
Snoring can happen when your tongue and other soft tissues in your mouth and throat become too relaxed, and passing air vibrates the soft tissue to create snoring. Dental nightguards can hold this soft tissue in place to prevent snoring.
Cost savings
Clenching and grinding teeth can cause extensive damage to your teeth, and repairing this damage can be expensive. You can save a tremendous amount of money by preventing damage through the use of dental nightguards early, before bruxism damages your teeth.
Easy care
Unlike other devices designed to improve the quality of your sleep, such as CPAP devices, dental nightguards are easy to care for.
How to clean a nightguard
- Remove your dental nightguard when you wake up
- Rinse your dental nightguard under warm water – avoid using hot water, as high temperatures may warp your nightguard enough so that it does not fit properly
- Brush your dental nightguard with a soft toothbrush and a non-abrasive cleanser, and rinse again
- Dry your dental nightguard completely (about 30 minutes) before storing it for the day
- Store your dental nightguard in its container when you are not using it; store in a cool, dry location, such as a nightstand instead of in your bathroom
- Deep clean your dental nightguard once a week in hydrogen peroxide and distilled white vinegar
For best results and optimal comfort, ask your dentist in Las Cruces to create a custom night guard just for you. Be sure to bring your nightguard to your dental appointments, especially if you are having teeth straightening or other significant work done. And, as always, consult with your Las Cruces dentist for information on making your dental nightguard more effective.
If you wake up with toothaches, headaches, sore muscles, or feeling like you didn’t get any sleep at all, you may benefit from wearing a night guard for teeth grinding. Contact Las Cruces Dental Solutions for more information on dental nightguards.
