Different dental splints and how each one can help you
A dental splint is an orthotic appliance that protects your teeth from wear and tear, whether that be from clenching, grinding or even contact sport, to name a few. At Limitless Dental, our dentists have a few dental splints that they recommend for patients, depending on what underlying problem they are trying to resolve. This article steps through the main dental splints that are available and their individual purpose. Each of these splints are custom-made to fit your teeth to relieve specific symptoms that you present with.
Have you been told you snore at night? A mandibular advancement splint may help…
Snoring impacts your quality of sleep, and that of anyone you might share your bed with. Whether you’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea or not, prolonged snoring has been linked with high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks, so it’s important to get it checked out rather than put up with it. At Limitless Dental, our dentists can spot signs of snoring during routine check ups.
We recommend a customised mandibular advancement splint to help combat snoring. It’s a splint worn overnight while you sleep, which holds your bottom jaw forward to help open up your airway. More often than not, snoring occurs because your airway is reduced in size as your jaw and/or tongue is pushed back towards your throat when you lie down to sleep. A mandibular advancement splint helps to prevent that, thereby reducing your snoring and restoring deeper layers of sleep. While it’s something you have to wear every night, it is physically not as intrusive as a CPAP machine.
Other things that we consider for snoring…
In addition to a customised mandibular advancement splint, our dentists may also recommend that you undergo a sleep study and refer you to an ENT (Ear Nose Throat specialist) if we’ve picked up nasal blockages that might be contributing to your snoring.
Have you been suffering from chronic headaches or jaw pain? An anterior repositioning splint might be what you need…
The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) connects your jaw to your skull and may be the root cause of some people’s chronic headaches or migraines. When the joint is subjected to excess pressure from clenching or grinding, you may develop temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMD), which creates a host of symptoms that may affect your day-to-day. Other than headaches, patients with TMD may experience locked or painful jaw muscles, pain in the jaw/neck, vertigo or even tinnitus.
The team at Limitless Dental are trained to spot signs of TMD and may suggest an anterior repositioning splint to wear overnight. This splint is referred to as a Farrar splint. It helps to redistribute the pressure (from clenching/grinding) towards the front teeth and away from the back teeth, which allows your biting muscles around your TMJ to relax. This in turn will relieve TMD symptoms.
If, however, your TMD symptoms are more advanced (e.g. chronic migraines), we will suggest also wearing a Gelb splint throughout the day, in conjunction with the Farrar splint while you sleep. The Gelb splint is a different type of anterior repositioning splint, which acts as a buffer between your back teeth to prevent clenching and allow your TMJ muscles to further relax. This relieves the ongoing pressure on your TMJ, if you knowingly or unknowingly clench and grind during the day. Think of it as a crutch for your TMJ to allow it to heal and repair itself. Both the day and night-time dental splints may dramatically relieve your TMD symptoms.
Other things that we consider for TMD…
TMD can stem from stress and manifest in all sorts of symptoms. While we know it’s impossible to avoid stress in this day and age, we do suggest having an overview of what could contribute to your ongoing clenching or grinding. We also have a network of local physiotherapists, chiropractors, osteopaths and acupuncture who can each help to relieve the muscle tension that builds up from TMD.
Did you get knocked in the face during footy? A sports mouthguard might help protect you…
Contact sport is rough and all sorts of injuries occur. We usually see a tooth or two knocked out as a result of contact sport, which we refer to as an avulsion injury. It’s important to get your dentist to have a look at your teeth if you get knocked in the mouth, as fracture damage may be miniscule at first but worsen without prompt treatment.
A custom-made mouthguard is a thicker version of a dental splint, designed to absorb any blows to the mouth and redistribute the force evenly across all your teeth and jaws, rather than just the impacted area. This lessens the risk of damage to your teeth. A custom-made one that moulds to the contours of your mouth is important to ensure your bite, breathing and speech are not impeded. Studies have shown that generic sports mouthguards that you might get from the chemist are equivalent to not wearing a mouthguard at all, given the ill-fitting quality increases the risk of contact injury.
Other things that we consider for contact sport…
In addition to protecting your teeth from wear and tear, there are certain dental splints which may improve sports performance. There are case studies which have shown wearing an anterior repositioning splint (as referenced above for TMD treatment) can enhance respiratory function. Better breathing can lead to improved performance in exercise and physical activity.
There might be a dental splint that can help you
Each splint that we produce at Limitless Dental is custom-made to your specific needs. We use a digital intra-oral camera to capture a 3D image of your teeth, which is sent off to our labs to create your splint. Gone are the days of smelly, gag-inducing putty that would be inserted around your teeth to get a mould! It’s important that we have regular check-ins with you as you wear your dental splint, to ensure it’s still relieving your symptoms and protecting your teeth.
