Specialist Dentistry

Occlusal Treatment

Occlusion is the way your teeth fit together
Headaches, neck pain, tooth sensitivity and tooth wear are among the many symptoms that could indicate your teeth are out of alignment. We can realign your joints and muscles to a point of balance again by occlusal splint therapy (this is a fully fitted removable clear plastic appliance) and/or occlusal adjustments of your teeth. This can affect your jaw joint and all the muscles surrounding it.

So when do problems occur?

If you bite normally on your back teeth you will apply a maximum pressure of 100lbs, however in bruxing (grinding) you can apply up to 1000lbs!

Obviously overloaded systems break-down. Overloaded muscles hurt. Neck and shoulder muscles brace your head against the jaw muscles causing pain in them. The lower jaw being out of position causes the head posture to change, thus causing muscle spasm and this can affect body posture or balance and weight distribution problems.

If your occlusion bite is out of alignment it can lead to:

Clenching teeth
Grinding teeth
Joint clicking
Joint locking
Headaches
Neck pain
Arm / shoulder pain
Tinnitus
Eye pain
Balance / postural problems
Sensitive teeth
Loose teeth
Gum recession
Gum inflammation

how we treat patients for occlusal issues

Key features of Occlusal Treatment

It is possible to realign your joints and muscles to a point of balance again by occlusal splint therapy.
A splint is a small closely fitted removable clear plastic appliance adjusted very accurately to a tolerance of less than 20 microns.
Most patients need only to sleep in the appliance to relieve symptoms.

Further Treatment

In a few patients the occlusion needs to be corrected to completely relieve symptoms and so to align the joints tiny adjustments of your teeth may be necessary, this is called occlusal equilibration or if the discrepancy is larger then orthodontic treatment or crowns may be needed.