• Dental Phobia Support

    Welcome! This is an online support group for anyone who is has a severe fear of the dentist or dental treatment. Please note that this is NOT a general dental problems or health anxiety forum! You can find a list of them here.

    Register now to access all the features of the forum.

Bruxism nightguard with many missing teeth

A

Anne2021

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2021
Messages
179
Location
USA
I have a question about using a night guard for bruxism/grinding when you are missing a lot of teeth. I am missing all my wisdom teeth, as well as 2, 12 and 15 on top and 18, 19, and 20 on the lower left. I will be having 30 and 31 on the lower right extracted on 2/16. I have never used a night guard before though I probably should have. The last tooth I had removed was 19 and that was extracted 12/15/22. Since then, I feel like I can tell that the front teeth, especially 8 and 9 are taking a lot more of the grinding pressure than they did before. I'm quite concerned about what will happen when 30 and 31 are gone. I don't want to crack my front teeth. I know in the short term I would have to grab something over-the-counter rather than customized, but whether from the drugstore or the dentist, can I wear a mouth guard with so little on the bottom to even bite against? I don't want to get something very small that I could choke on in the night. Please forgive any ignorance about this. I have no experience with this. Can anyone help me?
 
It's hard to say without seeing you, best advice I can give is try one and see how you get on during the day, if it feels solid enough then carry on. You're not likely to choke on one but you might wake up with it smiling at you from your pillow in the morning :)
 
@Gordon Thank you, Gordon. Nothing like a smile first thing in the morning :)
 
Back
Top