What is a night guard?
night guards are crafted from a durable material that custom-fits your mouth and gums. The night guard relaxes your muscles and prevents you from making the movements necessary to grind your teeth and clench your jaw. It also serves as a protective layer that keeps your upper and lower teeth from touching.
The process for making Night Guards
We understand the importance of having fast access to products that help you enhance your dental health. To ensure our patients receive their night guards as quickly as possible, we use digital impressions and 3D printing to produce our night guards in-house
Digital impressions
To create digital impressions, we scan your mouth to capture 3D images that enable us to produce a model of your mouth. We use computer software to design a mouth guard that perfectly fits your mouth.
3D printing
After we use digital impressions to design your night guard, we use precise 3D printing technology to make your night guard. This allows us to create perfectly fitting night guards in within a few hours.
What to expect when using your night guard
It might take a few nights to a few weeks to get used to sleeping with an oral appliance. You may notice extra drool and a bit of soreness as your mouth acclimates to the oral device used for night guard treatment. We recommend wearing the appliance for as long as you can tolerate on the first night, then take it out if you need a break. Try again the next night, and over the course of a few nights to a few weeks, you will be able to wear the appliance for longer until you can sleep comfortably throughout the night.
It’s also easy to care for your night guard. Clean it daily with a soft-bristled brush and a mild dish soap or product designed for cleaning night guards and other oral appliances. Avoid using toothpaste on your appliance because it is too abrasive and can damage your appliance.
How does a night guard improve your oral health?
Consistent teeth grinding and clenching can literally destroy your teeth. When you grind your teeth against one another, this wears away your teeth’s surface enamel, exposing your teeth’s dentin.Once dentin is exposed, your teeth will be more sensitive to cold and hot foods and beverages. Clenching your teeth creates microfractures that develop into cracks over time. This wear and tear on your teeth also makes them more likely to fracture or crack. Damaged teeth are prone to developing decay and infections that can impact the rest of your mouth, and can minimize your risk for needing a root canal or tooth extraction. night guards prevent your teeth from grinding against each other, reducing the wear on your teeth that can cause oral health issues.
What are the benefits of using a night guard?
There are multiple advantages associated with night guards:
You’ll decrease discomfort related to your teeth grinding
If you spend a portion of the night grinding your teeth, this puts a lot of pressure on your jaw muscles and head. Night guards in prevent you from grinding your teeth, alleviating the pressure that can cause headaches, sore muscles, aching jaws, and sensitive teeth.
You’ll reduce your chances of snoring
Clenching your teeth narrows your airway, making it hard for you to breathe properly. This causes disruptive snoring that can leave you feeling tired and groggy, even after a full night of sleep.
You can enhance your sleep quality
When you’re clenching your jaw throughout the night, this impacts the quality of your sleep. Regularly using a night guard reduces the frequency of sleep-disrupting habits, helping you feel more energized and well-rested.
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