Teeth, jaws and the like

[fivemack]

I had my first dental checkup in three years, and my teeth remain fine. Tech level has advanced again: I was given a small plastic-wrapped CCD imager to hold in my mouth for the X-rays, rather than a film holder, and my teeth were on a laptop screen within moments.

If I read the notes on the X-ray source correctly, it's 65keV; hc/E is then about 0.2 angstroms, which seems a surprisingly hard X-ray - I'm used to CuKa sources at 1.54A and synchrotrons that run at 1.00A. Does anyone have a reference for the X-ray absorption spectrum of air?

The toothache-like thing that has afflicted me for the last month is not tooth-related, but inflammation of the socket of the ball-and-socket joint at the right-hand side of my jaw; I'm told a major cause of this is grinding one's teeth together at night out of stress. I can take ibuprofen and hope it goes away, I can meditate constantly on the need to keep my teeth slightly apart when doing anything other than eating, or I can get the dentist to have made for me a small plastic cap to keep my teeth from grinding.

Generic ibuprofen costs 10p a tablet, and I should take three tablets a day. The custom-made small plastic cap costs three hundred pounds; it appears to be patented in such a way that it has to be manufactured by American dentists at USAnian-health-care costs.

Comments

[aldabra]

THREE HUNDRED POUNDS?

There must surely be a cheaper option than that.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Ah, you're probably exactly the person I'm looking for.

It is suggested that the root cause of this is some kind of stress, and that the kind of massage which would relax my neck and back muscles would be a useful way of dealing with this.

Do you happen to know where in Cambridge such things can be found?

[(Anonymous)]

The Glassworks, which is somewhere behind Quayside, did a very good one for me, some time ago. They also have a jacuzzi pool and whatnot, and you can get a deal whereby you get a massage and an hour in it (though alas I was economising 8-( and I don't think I've actually been in that one).

[aldabra]

Damn, that was me.

[redbird]

Taking ibuprofen for the rest of your life carries some risk, of course, and in three years you'll have spent as much on ibuprofen as you would on the plastic cap. Worth trying first, since you've only had this problem for a month, but not forever, I'd say.

I suspect the NHS is giving you a better price on those plastic things than we get here in the States, but I'm not sure about that. Another factor to consider is whether there's a Cambridge-area dentist who can not only make the cap, but make sure it's fitted properly and adjust it if need be. (I don't use one of these; a friend does, so I know a bit about them.)

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Are you talking about www.nti-tss.com? The object is to trick your jaws into not clamping down, not just to protect your teeth. If you just wanted to protect your teeth, you could use the kind of soft plastic mouthpiece boxers or football players wear. With an NTI, it's not just the cap that's important, but the fitting. They're useless if they aren't fitted and aligned perfectly. The dentist who did mine charged me $500 for the device, but that included as many adjustments as necessary. I was back there more than a dozen times for him to fuss with it. Of course, I wasn't doing it to fix a dull ache in my jaw, but trying to prevent continuous migraines, which is a pretty strong motive force.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

It's a MyoHealth Clenching Inhibitor, which looks quite similar to the NTI, but fits over top rather than bottom teeth and isn't designed to deal with migraine.

I will ask whether the cost includes fees for having the device adjusted; what concerned me slightly was that the manufacturing process involved sending moulds off to America which would take a month to return as a working inhibitor, and if I've only had the dull ache for a month it would be deeply vexing were it to disappear on its own while the inhibitor was being fabricated.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

It's certainly worth trying stretches and relaxation exercises to see if you can make the problem go away on your own. Massage is worth a try. There are some useful meditative practices in yoga and like that. A hot shower before bed (or hot compresses on the back of your neck and the side of your jaw) might help. If you can make the problem go away, wonderful. But if you can't, I recommend getting a device rather than trying to live with the problem. It's not just a matter of paying for ibuprofen, but doing gradual progressive damage to your teeth and jaws.

If the cost does not include adjustments, or if your dentist cannot adjust the device without sending it back to the US, those would be reasons to look for another dentist if you turn out to need this kind of help. (I used to see one dentist, in walking distance, to have my teeth cleaned and cavities filled and that sort of thing, and I'd take the MBTA to Brookline to see a different dentist who understood how to deal with the NTI.)

I don't see the month's delay caused by sending the molds to America as a reason not to do it. Sure, if you can stop clenching your teeth with yoga and hot showers, you might not need to spend 300 pounds or bother with going to the dentist...but that would be just as true if your dentist were making the device in his or her back room. Mine made the impressions and told me to come back in 2 weeks to get the device and have it adjusted, only it was nearly a month by the time I could actually get an appointment.

Before you spend 300 quid

[papersky.livejournal.com]

One of the most common causes of teeth-grinding is a tense neck, so having neck and shoulder massage might help. Also there is a posture exercise thing. Before you go to bed, stand up with your arms and shoulders back and let your head come forward, and relax your jaw completely, let it sag completely open. Your arms should be behind hanging from your shoulders but extended backwards, it's this combination that works. (Don't let anyone see this: they will laugh. But anyway.) Stand like that for a few moments, then stop, then do it again, four or five times. This relaxes the bit of the neck that tenses up and encourages the tooth grinding, and -- I speak from experience here -- doing it before bed seems to help.

The other really common cause of night tooth-grinding, especially the kind that leads to "is that a toothache or an ear-ache?" symptoms is one's unconscious trying to deal with sinus problems -- do you ever have, when awake, a feeling that the roof of your mouth itches?

[(Anonymous)]

Don't have a spectrum, but below 7KeV air absorption becomes important.

[(Anonymous)]

My friendly local X-ray instrumentation guy has pointed out that the '65kV, 7mA' note on the X-ray tube is the parameters of the electron-accelerating widget, rather than anything to do with the actual X-rays which will come out at an energy dependent on the composition of the target.

I was slightly surprised how silent the system was, since the X-ray generators I read about at work have heavy-duty cooling and motors for rotating the anode so that it doesn't melt; on the other hand, it may well be that crystallography requires rather higher energies for rather longer than dentistry desires. People being more susceptible to radiation damage even than protein crystals, and less amenable to cryoprotection.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

There was a lengthy article about TMJ (temperomandibular something?) in the NYT a month ago, which indicated that it's very common, and iirc made me vaguely skeptical about using a plastic cap until other methods have been tried (muscle relaxation techniques, sleeping in different positions, etc.) Very vague memory though.

[darcydodo]

Or you could hold a piece of wood between your teeth... and hope it doesn't just fall out of your mouth. :)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

300 pounds is about equivalent to the price I paid for my tooth things that I wear at night. I have a pair in case I lose one. I will not live without them. I didn't even have sore teeth or a headache or sore jaws -- I had broken teeth. But I'll tell you: after I got them I noticed how much better everything was. I noticed that I actually had all those aches and pains in my head all along but I didn't know it until they went away.

It's not an intrusive therapy. It's really much better than not having it.

And. If you leave it alone and try to convince yourself that you can change a behavior that happens when you're unconscious, what will happen is cracks in your teeth, which will become colonized by mouth bacteria, and which will lead to bigger and bigger holes in your teeth and periodontal disease and eventually maybe even systemic infections. The jaw bones themselves are imperiled as well, and you it's possible it will do bad things to your blood pressure.

Take care of your teeth! 300 pounds is not that much for a life of less pain and illness!

When I've lots my mouth guard things I've tried shoving a blanket between my teeth -- very unpleasant. -- Oh, and also, after years of using them, my whole face has become more relaxed all day and night, and I don't look like a bulldog anymore.