Treatment of bruxism:

The habit of grinding teeth is known as "bruxism." According to a survey by Baylor University in the U.S., it is seen in more than 8% of the population, which means that there are huge numbers of patients.  Looking at Japanese data, some report that more than 30 million people suffer from bruxism.  Then, why does bruxism occur? What types of people does it occur with, and what are the consequences?  A closely related symptom called "temporomandibular disorder," which I will discuss later, is often observed among young women, but bruxism lacks rational symptoms in general and is seen in people with all kinds of occupations regardless of gender.  It is said that many instances of bruxism occur during sleep due to occupational and/or social stresses, and that such people relieve the stress by grinding their teeth.? There are also reports claiming that bruxism is often seen among heavy smokers and heavy coffee drinkers.  There are cases of habitual bruxism, for example baseball players clenching teeth when swinging a bat, as well as those caused by abnormal teeth alignment.

The rational symptoms felt by some people include a dull feeling in the jaw or tensed jaw muscles (area under the ears) when getting up in the morning. ?However, in most cases bruxism is difficult to diagnose.  If there is another person whose sleeps in the same room, such as a spouse, that person may point out objective symptoms such as rasping and crunching noise (called grinding) or a ticking noise (called tapping).  If the conditions advance, not only can dental problems such as breaking and cracking of teeth occur but also the jaw joints may be affected, causing temporomandibular disorders (pain in the jaw, the mouth not opening easily, etc.).  In some cases the problems are not limited to the jaw but also appear as pain in the neck or in the back of the head (a type of tension headache) or can be neurologically related to the apnea syndrome.  As such, they should never be taken lightly.  On the other hand, in the U.S. there are reports that many people who snore also gnash their teeth during sleep.

Conventional treatment techniques include wearing devices that prevent bruxism (e.g. a mouthpiece) and dental techniques such as orthodontics. They seem to be effective for significant percentages of patients, but there are still many patients who suffer from prolonged persistent symptoms.  A method that uses Botox to treat patients for whom existing treatment techniques are not effective has been tried out lately in the U.S. and elsewhere.  A neurology medicine group at Baylor University School of Medicine, as mentioned earlier, reported in a paper published in 2000 that they had treated 18 patients of persistent bruxism by injecting 25 to 100 units of Botox into the affected jaw muscles and, as a result, observed significant effects in all the patients.  Extremely obstinate bruxism is also observed in patients with disorders of the brain, and the effects of Botox have been recognized in such cases.  Similar reports are not published in the U.S. alone but also in Europe.

Given the treatment policy for bruxism, if such symptoms are suspected the author recommends that a dental surgeon perform the therapeutic treatment.  If expected effects are not obtained or treatment with mouthpiece is intolerable, it may be a good idea to try Botox treatment performed by an experienced clinician.