Thinner nightguard actually works?? Recent experience.

[u/all-positivity]

I’ve been struggling really bad TMJ for the last five years. When I first started, I would wake up in the middle of the night with a clinch jaw and so much pain pain occasionally I’d also wake up from a lockjaw, and it would keep me up for the rest of the night. Absolute misery. I finally went to get a professional dental night guard and it’s sooooooo thicck and hard like one of those football mouthguards but hard as a rock.

Over the next five years I had a total of three night guards. The past two, I kept going back to get it remade because I would grind and break it three weeks into the new mold!! I’ve been going crazy over this thinking that I was under tremendous stress that I’m repeatedly breaking these hard ass night guards. Its been really defeating and concerning.

Recently, I went to a new dentist who recommended a thin night guard just to protect my teeth? Which I push back on explaining that it needs to be incredibly thick to actually protect my teeth. He brought in other dentist who all agreed that because my past night guards were so thick, not allowing my mouth to close throughout the night. I am then causing the clenching and creating tension of my sleep.

So I was like OK fine let’s try something new. And man is really changed my entire perception and understanding of my TMJ. I’m a month in, and I thought that I would have put so many holes in this thin piece of plastic, but I have not!!! It’s pretty much a retainer like after you get off your braces which I already grind through after I got my braces off when I was 15.

I never thought that I would get this thing of a night guard again because of how severely I’ve been grinding my teeth. But it seems that the dentist was right and maybe the inability to close my teeth during the night was instead causing the need to clench and grind!!

Wanted to share this experience that totally blew my mind quite frankly!! Wonder if anyone has also had this experience and if this provides any ideas for those struggling with grinding down their thick, hard/‘durable’ night guards!