Constantly rubbing tongue against teeth

[jrg]

did you ever get any more relief, as I was reading your profile, I felt like I was reading my story with the wax on the tooth, the oral gel, but it is always just a temporary fix. I even have found when the dentist puts perio packing behind the tooth it helps as my tongue can no longer get to the tooth, so I wanted to see if you were any better. All the best and thank you.

 

[jrg]

If anyone has been on anti-anxiety meds for this condition, can you advise as to what you were prescribed, the dosage and if you had any relief? Thank you

 

[Pardusnoir]

I cannot express how relieved I am to find out this is an actual issue and not just me hyperfixating on my front teeth! I mean, I'm not happy everyone is going through this or something similar, but after reading through this thread I find some comfort knowing it's not just me.
For me this inconvenient habit started about two months ago while I was trying to fall asleep. I'm nocturnal by nature and a chronic over-thinker anyway so I've always had an issue falling asleep, but this particular night I started sucking at my upper front teeth for some reason. It quickly escalated into my concern that I had too much saliva in my mouth and I spent the night trying Not to suck on my teeth or milk the saliva gland beneath my tongue while constantly swallowing.
Two months later and my tongue is so raw that toothpaste burns my tongue and my mouth feels as if I have a constant state of dry mouth even though I drink all the time! I'm so frustrated, but thought that this had something to do with my MDD and ADHD of which I take meds for. I asked my doctor about it and they suggested that I just needed my teeth cleaned. I haven't gotten up the courage to ask my dentist yet, or my therapist, but I'm going to try some of the things suggested here to try and break this.
I do hope people continue to post in this thread, perhaps someone will find a solution to this.

 

[Wolfie]

@Pardusnoir Hi. I have this since May. My tongue is raw and sore. It never stops. The more nervous I am the more I do it. Check my posts from past. Maybe it is some kind of obsession? I am on Lexapro but it doesnt help for this at all

 

[Wolfie]

@Pardusnoir Also, if you have to control your swallowing, check sensorimotor OCD..

 

[Tempest]

I have had this problem for years as well as grinding my teeth at night Personally I think it's brought on by stress and this is how it the pressure manifests physically
I have decided that it is not going away and I will just have to live with it and try to manage it
Recently I found out that I'm a perfectionist!! Great I hear you say!!!
I seriously would have considered myself easy going..
I now realise that other people do not spend hours and hours over a short email eg Should I start the email with 'Hi' or 'Dear' or spend weekends up all night getting reports absolutely perfect Or when I submit a report and see a spelling mistake I am severely critical of myself etc - wrecking stuff
I never realised the amount of pressure I was putting myself under!!!
Anyway this realisation, at over 50 yrs has been a revelation and a 'light bulb moment' to controlling my stress and it has reduced the teeth rubbing a little
Every little helps!! And above all be very kind to myself - very difficult
I think that I can say on this forum one of the common denominator is we are much too critical of ourselves and don't give ourselves the kind break we afford to others

 

[Toothless33]

@Wolfie hi Wolfie. I think you wrote me and asked me how I was doing a while ago. I’d it wasn’t you please let me know. I had two teeth taken out because of my tongue obsession. I’ve been like this since 2015 after a root canal. I have tried everything imaginable. I finally got my implants in months ago and the discomfort moved from two teeth to one of the implants and I have a numbness in a front tooth so again, nothing has worked. The wax someone mentioned is just a temporary fix. I had sinus surgery. I have all kinds of nightguards and daytime splints. I’m working with a psychologist and she has changed my medication like 3 times and I still continue to with the discomfort in the implant and tooth next to implant. She said she has to change the way my mind works. I give every medication one month and on to the next. I can’t recommend any medication because they haven’t worked. I started with two regular teeth and had them taken out after years of discomfort and the discomfort moved to two other teeth so I do not recommend for any one to have their teeth taken out. I now have implants and the discomfort went back to the implant. Hello, it’s a fake tooth so how can it possibly feel it like if it was a real tooth and my tongue goes crazy and doesn’t leave the tooth alone. I’ve just been wearing a nightguard that cost me $1,000.00 during the day when I can’t stand the pain any more. So good luck to everyone. My psychiatrist is obsessed with fixing this problem for me. She tells me that if I am so great with that constant discomfort, imagine how amazing I will be when I don’t have it any more. She’s very encouraging. lol. But she understands everyday is a struggle for me. I’ll post here if we find a medication makes me stop this horrible ocd behavior.

 

[Toothless33]

So my psychiatrist put me on 450mg of Bupropion and 2mg of Risperidone (1 at night and 1 in the morning) and for about 5 days my tongue was nowhere near the teeth. I just had an achy feeling probably from rubbing those teeth for so many years. But unfortunately, the medication started making me really sleepy in the morning and just too many side effects for me to handle. I reduced the dosage of Risperidone and then my tooth started bothering me again but I noticed that if I really concentrate, I can stop obsessing over the tooth for a little while. I will tell this to my psychiatrist to see what is the correct dosage of Risperidone or if there is another medication with less side effects. But at least I had 5 days of relief and I know that there is hope. I'll post if I find a more permanent solution.

 

[Wolfie]

@Toothless33 Hi dear. I tried Risperidone but I had lower dose. Didnt work for me. I am on Lexapro 10mg. It helps with anxiety but not really with this teeth obsession. I also have very high prolactine as result of antidepressant usage. My friend on Risperidon has milk in breasts. Wish we didnt need this meds There is light at the end of tunnel for sure. But side effects ruin it Also my obsession gets worse during my 'women days'

 

[Toothless33]

@Wolfie Risperidone is the pill from hell. Lol. So many side effects. I was lethargic. It affected my fine motor skills and my short term memory. I couldn't even text properly. I had no motivation to do anything. Everything was an effort. I kept falling asleep in the morning so I had to drink coffee and after the coffee I would get horrible anxiety. My blood pressure went up and I had rapid pulse. I went back down to a lower dose. In this case the cure is worse than the disease. It did stop the obsession with the tooth for a few days so at least I know there has to be something out there that I can tolerate. I have taken Lexapro before and it gives me anxiety instead of taking it away. I need something specifically for OCD but all the OCD medications give me more anxiety. It's so nice to hear from you.

 

[Wolfie]

@Toothless33 I wish I had solution for both of us All I can do is to give support through talking but no real solution I cant imagine to be obsessed with teeth for the rest of my life. I never even imagined something like this exists. Life is difficult enough so why do we have to live with another rare problems...

 

[Toothless33]

@Wolfie and people don't understand why we can't stop it. Even the dentist who put my implants told me that what stresses me so much that I do that to my teeth and I told him, nothing stresses me. The biggest stress I have is that I can't stop touching these teeth. My stress is the teeth! Imagine if I didn't have this constant rubbing how much more I could accomplish. I don't know why this had to happen to me. I also think about having to deal with this for the rest of my life.

 

[Wolfie]

@Toothless33 I told this to many dentists. They just said, oh, its normal after teeth shape change. I dont think it should take this long. Years. Noone believes me it really affects my every day life. There is literally not a single hour I live without licking, touching, pushing with tongue into my teeth. I do it in sleep as well. Exactly how you said, our stress is teeth Some days I am really desperate and I use alprazolam to put me into sleep so I dont think or know about my teeth at all

 

[Wolfie]

@Toothless33 Oh and they are now sensitive to hot and cold too. I think, from all the pushing into them plus attrition

 

[VIOLA]

@ForeverInDreams
Thank you for posting this. I will try the wax and post again. But first I wanted to connect with this thread. I have suffered for 11 years now with a tooth irritation that attracts my tongue continuously. Like all of you I struggle to find a way to control my tongue. Indeed, I very nearly developed a condition of logorrhea, a sort of constant babbling to keep my tongue occupied.
The dentists treat me as if I'm crazy and my life has indeed deteriorated to a seemingly crazy state, indeed at one point it involved homelessness and living in housing shelters. WOW.
The dentist I saw this week suggested I have OCD (her son has it), but I have never been diagnosed with any kind of cognitive difficulty or compulsion. Some of the posts on this thread talk about OCD and medications but I would like to avoid that.
It's so sad that we are having to cope with this, but I am grateful to know I am not completely alone, and I am probably not crazy either. It seems all of us are experiencing tremendous stress and even suicidal tendencies because of an irritation on our tongues. The tongue magnifies every feeling by about 10,000 (yes that's a guess, though I don't think I'm far wrong). It's very hard to keep the tongue still because it's job is to explore things, think of children putting objects in their mouth. Tongues have a lot to tell us. I think my tongue is simply trying to send a message to my brain, essentially saying: this is a problem over here and freaking fix it! Well, I'm close to giving up on finding a dentist who understands or cares. So I must find a way to live with it. After reading a lot of these posts I have spent today forcing my tongue to stay relaxed. One post said this could work if one worked at it relentlessly for many days.
This contant pulling of my tongue into a corner of my mouth for 11 years is now creating a feeling of a pulled muscle in the back of my neck and a dull localized headache back there. So now my brain is getting a new message: Relax the tongue!
Well that's a small part of my trials. Thank you for a place to speak my truth.

 

[Wolfie]

@VIOLA Hi and welcome. Nice to meet you. So many people with this problem and dentist offer no help. I wonder, will we live like this forever?

 

[Mikeymike]

So I have the same problem like the rest of you. When I concentrate I can stop my tongue from rubbing against my teeth. Once I stop thinking about it my tongue goes right back to rubbing raw on the back of my teeth though. Also if I stop taking my ADD medication my tongue rubbing issues go away almost completely. However I can not stop my tongue from moving around and fluttering even when concentrating as well as being off my ADD meds. However the fluttering of my tongue does not cause discomfort. It just makes it weird when interferes with the dentist trying to do work in your mouth. IF YOU DO TAKE ADD MEDS IT MAY HELP SOME OF YOU WITH YOUR TONGUE RUBBING ISSUES IF YOU STOP TAKING YOUR ADD MEDS. I HAVE TRIED DEXTROAMPHETAMINE METHLYINPHINDATE & MODAFINIL they all seem to have the side effect of rubbing my tongue raw on my teeth. Hope this helps

 

[VIOLA]

Hi to Everyone on this forum!
Today, June 14, 2022, I visited a public health dentist in Toronto Ontario Canada. Amazingly, she helped me, close to 95% relief for this roughness that has been irritating my tongue these 11 years!!!!
She listened to me, and polished the tooth, exactly as I had asked more than a
dozen dental professionals over these many many years.
I have some residual tongue rooting, but this just happened two hours ago! Mostly the teeth feel smooth, normal, nice. I can hardly believe it. I certainly cannot understand why no one else would do this when clearly, now, it was doable all the time!!! It's not perfect but soooooooo mmmuchhh bbbettterrrr!!!!!

 

[Chuck]

@ForeverInDreams , thanks for posting. The orthodontic wax has been a Godsend. I’ve only been using it for a few days and while it has arrested the annoying symptom, I’m still not sure if it has actually stopped the problem.

Still, it is an easy fix; simple, inexpensive and accessible.

Thanks, again.

 

[toothfairy]

I have been having the same problem for the last month. I had a tooth cleaning and from then on I always have the feeling that I have something in my front bottom teeth. Brushing and flossing doesn't solve anything.
Is it an imbalance in the saliva that is causing this?
In the last few days, at the end of meals, besides brushing my teeth, I have been rinsing my mouth with baking soda and I no longer feel the urgency of always running my tongue over my teeth.