Hi folks,
I'm after some advice. I just had my first adjustment, which meant replacing the initial thin archwires with rather chunkier ones with a square profile. I also have a dirty great coil spring to open up a gap between my front tooth and premolar to allow a canine in.
This is all very interesting :P, but the problem I'm having is that I'm a chronic tooth grinder while I sleep. It's not severe enough to require treatment ordinarily. However, now with the new wire, my bite has changed and I woke up with severe pain in one of my molars on the lower right. As far as I can see, there are two causes:
- When I bite down (gently), the molars on the left are not touching, whereas the ones on the right are, with most of the pressure on the problem tooth
- The problem tooth hasn't moved outwards as much yet as the ones near it, meaning it gets a lot of pressure from my tongue (I tend to press outwards with my tongue, unconsciously)
To top it all off, that tooth has quite a deep filling which has been problematic in the past (it's less than 6 months old though).
What can I do so I don't wake up in agony again? Maybe an over-the-counter mouth guard thingo? A visit to the
orthodontist to maybe have some bumpers (if that's the right term) put in?
