Tooth grinding can cause quite a headache - literally. If you're a regular tooth grinder, chances are you know that a night or day of tooth grinding can leave you with a sore jaw, achy head, and even pain or stiffness in the temporomandibular joint. If you're tired of grinding your teeth, braces might be the fix you're looking for. Here's how braces can keep you from grinding your teeth.

Common Cause of Tooth Grinding

People often grind their teeth due to stress, but that's not the only cause. For many people, tooth grinding is unavoidable because their teeth are crooked.

When teeth are crooked, they don't just overlap each other or create gaps in your smile. The teeth that move out of alignment often jut upward more than they should as they tilt from side to side or get pushed out of position by a neighboring tooth. When this happens, and you attempt to rest your jaw, you may be grinding misaligned teeth chronically.

Why You Should Get the Fix

In addition to potentially preventing pain and discomfort associated with tooth grinding, you should consider getting your tooth problem fixed. Over time, tooth grinding can cause serious damage to your smile.

Tooth grinding eventually wears away at teeth, breaking down enamel, causing cracking or breaks, and even changing the shape of the tooth over time. These are all serious oral health problems that require dental visits to fix.

Unfortunately, even fixing the problems tooth grinding has caused you won't actually stop the tooth grinding. Thankfully, braces can help with that.

When braces move your teeth back into alignment, the grinding should stop. You will be able to close and rest your jaw without your teeth grinding together.

What to Expect

The way your orthodontist will help you with your tooth grinding problem depends on how badly misaligned your teeth are.

If you have serious misalignments and an underbite or overbite, standard or sublingual braces will likely be a necessity. Both have the ability to fix jaw problems, as well as moving individual teeth around.

If your only issue is overcrowding and crooked teeth, invisible braces may be a possibility. These are some of the most popular forms of braces, as they can be removed whenever you like to allow eating and hygiene maintenance.

Getting braces can potentially prevent further damage from being done to your teeth from tooth grinding and stop the grinding from happening entirely. If you're tired of having the headaches and achiness in the jaw that is associated with tooth grinding, seek help from an orthodontist to find out if adult braces are right for you.