I went to see a new dentist today. I hadn’t been to the dentist for about a year and a half prior to this. He told me I grind my teeth and need to get a mouthguard.
It’s the first I’ve heard of it, but I don’t dispute the need for a mouthguard, since one of my friends just broke one of her teeth through grinding!–however, the dentist wants to charge me $500 for it, and it’s not covered by insurance. Could I just get a cheap-o mouthguard (or 100) from the drugstore instead? How will I know if it’s working or not working? I don’t have jaw pain or anything, but the surfaces of my teeth have apparently gotten worn down from the grinding. Does anyone have professional or personal experience with this? Is there really such a big difference between the $500 and the $5 mouthguard?
Also, I was thinking of possibly getting Invisalign treatment to correct some teeth that have gotten crooked again since my childhood orthodontic treatments. The dental assistant said that a lot of people would wear the last set of Invisalign retainers as mouthguards to prevent grinding. Does anyone know about this? Has anyone had Invisalign? I especially don’t want to get a $500 custom-fitted mouthguard if it will be useless in a year due to orthodontic treatment.
The best thing about the dentist version is that it is small, and fits well, which makes it more comfortable and easier to sleep with.
The drug store variety (there are dozens of versions) tend to be a bit bulky and ill fitting. If you can find a drug store version that fits well enough, and is comfortable enough to sleep in, it will perform the exact same function as the dental variety, at a fraction of the cost.
If it makes you feel better, I paid 1300 for my custom mouthguard. It works great, it’s small, fits perfectly. I’ve had it about one year now and I’ve just about grinded through it in the back. I wonder how long until it cracks and breaks.
Cluck and call me chicken, I’m afraid to go back and see how much money they want to fix it.
I wore my mouthguard for a week. To make matters worse, I’m a borderline snorer. If I have ANY allergy symptoms or sinus inflammation, I snore like the dickens…the mouthguard made it worse.
Coincidentally, this very topic was on my message boards at work. The posters were divided between those who felt they were valuable and those who thought that they were lining their dentists’ pocket. One lady’s dentist asked her if she had dental insurance, she said no, then he recommended getting a generic sports guard. Another dude paid over $500 for a custom fitted one and then confessed that after two weeks he left it on the bathroom counter because it was a pain in the patootie.
cwPartner tried a generic sports mouthguard and ended up getting the expensive custom kind. He says it’s considerably more comfortable because it’s smaller/thinner, and it stays in place much, much better.
I had one back when I was boxing that I really liked. It was ridiculously cheap, but it molded to a custom fit. You boiled it, waited a few seconds, bit down, and sucked all the air out, smashing it forward with your tongue. If it was too thick for you, you got another one, cut part of the ‘lip’ parts off, and tried it again. Usually after two or three of them (they ran a couple bucks each), you got one that fit you just right.
I only ever did a few contact sports, so I don’t know if your normal athletic one is like that. I forget who made them, but maybe you could look into that.
I don’t know how you could possibly expect a non-custom-fitted mouthguard to do anything. The whole point of the guards is that they change the way your teeth come together. Something that isn’t custom fitted and adjusted at best might spread the pressure over a larger area.
I’ve more or less taught myself not to grind anymore, but back when I was doing it all the time, the guard was a huge help. The dentist would adjust it by having me put it on and bite down on colored paper thingies. She could then see where my teeth came together with the most pressure. She’d carefully grind down parts of the guard and get it so that the teeth that were causing the problems simply didn’t touch each other when I bit down. How could something not custom fitted do that?
That thing spared me a whole heck of a lot of pain. And yes, I paid for it myself. After you spend a few days with the absolute agony that’s caused by griding, a few hundred bucks for something that will fix it is money well spent.
I’m 28, and the dentist said that by evidence from the x-ray that he didn’t even need to ask if I was a grinder. Between that dentist appointment and my follow-up appointment about 6 weeks later, I became fully aware of how much I do clench my jaw in my sleep – sometimes even during the day.
What he reccommended was something called an NTI-tss device, which is about the size of a die (“dice”) and fits comfortably over your two front teeth. It’s not a mouthguard, but more like a small plastic cap that fits in place so that your teeth physically cannot touch each other. Only your front two bottom teeth touch the bottom of the plastic piece fitting, hence, no more grinding.
It’s supposed to help train the jaw muscles to stop straining themselves, so that eventually, the problem goes away on its own.
I searched for images of the device and found this page. Scroll down on the page to see what it looks like.
I like mine. It prevents me from clenching/grinding at night, and didn’t take long to get used to. Mine dentist charged $175 for it. The mouthguard was the same price, but in my research, I found that while mouthguards do prevent damage from grinding, they can actually increase the degree of tension your jaw muscles exert while grinding.
