Teeth Grinding
Teeth grinding
is a medical condition wherein a person unconsciously clenches or grinds his or her teeth. This often this occurs while asleep. Teeth grinding or bruxism, is not merely a habit. In fact, it is a condition that is currently being addressed by today’s medicine. Doctors believe that bruxism is caused by a number of factors such as:
1. Stress
Stress is the most common reason for bruxism. Most doctors suppose that stress is the primary cause of teeth grinding during sleep. Stress can disrupt a person’s sleeping cycle. If a particular sleeping pattern is disrupted, the person ends up clenching their teeth unconsciously and intermittently during sleep.
2. Aggressive Personality
This factor causing bruxism is related to your personality type, often referred to as “Type A”. Just like the former reason, this one also deals with one’s emotions. In this case, the person lets out all his aggression towards the intended subject and may unconsciously grind their teeth in the process.
3. Abnormal Alignment of Teeth
The abnormal alignment of the upper and lower teeth is referred to as malocclusion. This is one of the physical causes of teeth grinding. Dental experts believe that if there is something abnormal about the structure of a person’s teeth, they grind involuntarily against each other as they make contact.
4. Growth Development of the Teeth and Jaws
This is the common reason of bruxism in children. For kids 7 years old and under, their teeth are still in their growing stages. There are a lot of instances where the actual growth and eruption of the teeth causes itchiness in the gum area, causing kids to grind their teeth. Teeth grinding becomes the body’s response to the changes happening in the jaws and the teeth. It may also happen that as the teeth grow, the upper and lower molars don’t fit together. In an attempt to make them fit comfortably with one another, teeth grinding occurs. Bruxism in children may not be very common. However, they usually outgrow this condition as their teeth improve in structure over time.
5. A Complication of Another Disease
There are studies showing that bruxism can be caused by another disease, such as Parkinson’s disease or Huntington disease. Parkinson’s disease is the degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, which affects the person’s motor skills. Huntington’s disease, on the other hand, is a neurological disorder that is characterized by lack of movement coordination. People suffering from any of these two disorders are likely to grind their teeth either during the day or at night.
6. Drugs and Medications
Several studies are being conducted to check whether certain drugs used to treat depression, as well as other similar psychiatric medications, could be the causes of bruxism. The results are yet to be published, but a lot of doctors are suspecting that these types of drugs can trigger teeth grinding.
7. Genetics and Inheritance
Inheritance of teeth grinding refers to whether the condition is inherited from your parents or “runs” in families. The level of inheritance of a condition depends on how important genetics are to the disease inheritance. Strongly genetic diseases are usually inherited, partially genetic diseases are sometimes inherited, and non-genetic diseases are not inherited.