When I was in college, the girl who lived in my lower bunk always made such a sound of grinding her teeth when she slept at night. Everyone laughed at her for having roundworms in her stomach. She didn’t feel like what herself, but she felt very sour teeth and saliva when she got up in the morning.
This is my first contact with [bruxism] and I feel very curious. I took a closer look at her teeth: the edges of the teeth became very sharp, and the sharp tiger teeth were ground flat.
Children’s molars are more common, but the reasons are also more complicated. Here we only discuss adults’ molars at night.
Why do you grind your teeth?
According to folklore, molars are caused by [roundworms in the stomach] [incorrect sleeping posture] and so on, but there is not enough evidence to support its relationship with molars.
However, molars are indeed the result of a combination of many factors:
1. Central nervous factors
We have cycles from waking to falling asleep and then waking up. Molars occur at specific times in a certain sleep cycle. Several muscles responsible for chewing involuntarily begin to contract regularly. At the same time, it is accompanied by increased electrical activity in the cerebral cortex, irregular breathing, accelerated heartbeat, increased blood pressure, etc.
2. Psychological factors
Molars are a way to release anxiety, nervousness and other emotions.
Some surveys show that among people who work night shifts frequently, are under great pressure and are prone to tension, the probability of molars is higher. At the same time, in their bodies, the content of several hormones that can indicate people’s anxiety is also higher than the average level.
3. External stimuli
Exogenous factors such as drinking, coffee, smoking and taking drugs can also cause or aggravate molars.
4. Certain diseases
For example, Parkinson’s disease, sleepwalking, depression and other diseases that affect our motor function, sleep and psychological problems may have molars.
5. Other
Heredity and eating habits are also related to molars.
It’s harder than biting walnuts to bite your teeth?
If you have heard the sound of other people grinding their teeth while sleeping, you must be impressed, because the sound of grinding teeth is much more loud than the sound of chewing crisp bones or eating nuts.
To make such a loud noise, we certainly can’t use the energy we usually spend eating. We need to pay multiple efforts. However, this strength is not used to bite walnuts and crabs, but ultimately spent on our own teeth and temporomandibular joints.
Even if teeth are the hardest organs of the human body, they cannot stand such losses as [iron pestle grinding needle].
The left side is normal teeth and the right side is molar patient’s teeth.
If you grind it in the long run, there will be many changes in your mouth.
-
Teeth: Tooth tissue slowly loses its original appearance in the [internal struggle], and its chewing function decreases, resulting in [the heart is more than it can handle] when eating.
-
Joint: Temporomandibular joint, when biting things, you can touch the moving part with your hand in front of your ear. As the fulcrum when chewing things, it bears all the strength. After grinding teeth for a long time, there may be various problems, including bad structure, poor function, etc. Some people will have the sound of [clicking] when opening their mouths.
-
Muscles: That is, the muscles we are responsible for chewing cannot get a chance to rest. When we get up in the morning, our cheeks are sour, which is the manifestation of muscle fatigue and damage.
-
Dentures: If teeth have been planted or fitted with dentures, molars will increase their chances of damage.
Can molars be treated?
At present, what we can do for night molars is usually some protective measures, not therapeutic measures.
Schematic Diagram of Cushion