So many people ask me how come we grind our teeth when we sleep.  Most of the time we don’t even know about it until someone else (like a dentist) tells us about it.  Often people assume that the person sleeping next to them would hear the grinding sound, but often it isn’t the case.

 Why do people grind their teeth?  Simply put, the way the jaw closes is not in the same position as way the teeth occlude.  Hence, when the jaw is trying to “relax”- getting to its most comfortable position, the teeth are in the way.  So, the jaw is trying to move around to get “comfortable”, hence the grinding occurs.

 In many incidences, after a night of grinding, the muscles of the jaw would feel “tight” and the teeth become more sensitive to cold or have trouble in biting down on the hard food.  We recommend a mouth guard for those “frequent” grinders to reduce trauma to their teeth and jaw muscles.

 People usually put on this mouth guard at night before they sleep. Therefore, we called it “night guard”.  In dental profession, we called it “occlusal splint”.  Usually, it is made of a thermal sensitive material, which softens in the temperature above 40 degrees Celsius and would become hard when the temperature drops below 40 degrees. Often it is placed on the upper teeth.  We will introduce different types of occlusal splint in our next blog.

Many dentists and hygienists believe that electric toothbrushes can perform much better than manual toothbrushes. It is not because of the technology. Mainly it is because of the user.

Many people do not know how to brush their teeth properly. For years, they have been brushing in an incorrect fashion, but old habits are hard to change. Hence, by introducing the electric toothbrush, a new instrument, a new method of brushing can be introduced.

However, some areas in the mouth, such as the surfaces on the lower front teeth on the tongue side, should be brushed with the manual toothbrush rather than the electric toothbrush due to the contour of these teeth.

Check out the following link on how to brush your teeth.

http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/abyss/dep1344.htm

However, note that the back and forth movement in the illustration does not mean dragging your toothbrush across the gum line. If you do that it will damage your gums and cause a groove line along the root of your tooth, which could become very sensitive. You can only drag your brush on the biting surfaces of the teeth which already has a lot of grooves.

In Calgary, most dental clinics/dentists would do head and neck examinations in making sure the patients have no abnormalities.  However, screening for oral cancer may not be as popular as one may think.

“Oral cancer is the largest group of those cancers which fall into the head and neck cancer category. Common names for it include such things as mouth cancer, tongue cancer, and throat cancer. Approximately 36,000 people in the US will be newly diagnosed with oral cancer in 2010. This includes those cancers that occur mouth itself, in the very back of the mouth known as the oropharynx, and on the exterior lip of the mouth. This is the fourth year in a row in which there has been an increase in the rate of occurrence of oral cancers, in 2007 there was a major jump of over 11% in that single year. There are two distinct pathways by which most people come to oral cancer. One is through the use of tobacco and alcohol, a long term historic problem and cause, and the other is through exposure to the HPV-16 virus (human papilloma virus version 16), a newly identified etiology, and the same one which is responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancers in women. A small percentage of people (under 5 %) do get oral cancers from no currently identified cause. It is currently believed that these are likely related to some genetic predisposition.”

Please refer to www.oralcancerfoundation.org for more and updated information regarding this.

Because of the significant increase in the rate of occurrence of oral cancer, we have purchased a special light that can help us to screen oral cancer. We offer this service to every patient 16 years and older at yearly basis.  Please ask us for more information when you come in for your next visit with us