Morning tooth pain - what to do?

[cdekter]

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?

[Sunny]

If it's bothering you, talk to your ortho. Also it would be wise to talk to your ortho about your tongue ... as that will undo any work your orthodontic work does.

Definitely don't buy an over the counter mouthguard, as that will prevent your teeth from moving, as that's the purpose of a mouthguard ... the opposite of orthodontics.

Great that your alignment phase is over and you ortho is now using a square archwire to do the tipping and levelling.

Here's to your teeth continuing to do so well!

[cdekter]

I did ring my orthodontist's office this morning, they said give it 3-4 days and call again if there is no improvement. I guess I'll just have to tough it out. It's really not that bad, just that I'm a total wimp when it comes to pain I'm consoling myself with the knowledge that my next appointment is not for another 8 weeks and that will not involve a new wire, so here's to hopefully up to 4 months of no pain

So the square profile wire is for tipping and levelling... very interesting. There is still a bit of rotation to go on one of my canines, and in fact he wasn't able to get the archwire into that bracket, had to tie it on with ligature wire. Apart from that one, I am just amazed how much my teeth have moved in just 6 weeks. It's already at the stage where I look in the mirror and think hey, are those my teeth?! I hardly recognise them after having crooked teeth all my life.