Bruxism: Grinding Your Teeth Is the Pits

It's all just it's exactly what we hoped it would be. And we cannot wait for you to get your hands on it. Yes, we can't. Um, and you don't have to wait. Actually, well you do have to wait, but you don't have to wait to order. You can go pre order the book right now everywhere you get books, and you will eventually get a special gift for pre ordering, which we're working on right now. That's right, So check it out soon coming this fall. Welcome to Stuff you

Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Y, Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant speaking to me today through clenched teeth. Jerry is off um doing who knows what, but she's here, so this is stuff you should know. That's probably right. She's ministering to the um those in need. Yeah, we might as well call this episode, uh, the peek into Chuck's private life. You're gonna have a lot of personal

stories about this. Yeah, okay, Okay, well, good while I'm looking forward to that. Yes cha, I was just about to say, Chuck your Brooks or b r u x e er, which is a great word, um imprint at least and Brooks are it's all right out loud too, I guess. But um, I really don't think we can start this episode any other way aside from how this how stuff works article kicked it off. Okay, okay, go ahead, So Chuck, when we're trying to figure out what bruck

is um is. No, it's not a strange new religion or the latest exercise crazy to come out of l A. It's the complicated medical term for the simple act of grinding your teeth in l All those wacky exercise trends, I know, strange new religions with X is in the middle of them that make you give them all your money. Yeah, bruck is um uh, teeth grinding. I'm a tooth grinder, so you've had like serious dental work from that, right? And uh, did you grind? Because we should probably tell

everybody there's really two big categories of grinding teeth. One is daytime grinding and the other is nighttime grinding. And nighttime grinding is way more intense. So were you a nighttime grinder and currently both? Oh you still are? Oh yeah, okay? And then, um, do you when you're a nighttime grinder

doing your grinding thing? Do you wake Emily up? Uh? No, she sleeps pretty soundly, okay, because from what I understand, it's it's not hard to actually wake the person sleeping in bed with you up from grinding your teeth that loudly, Like that's how that's how loud it gets from how much pressure you're exerting on your poor teeth, That's what I've heard. I've never recorded myself. I've thought about doing that. Yeah, you know they have those apps I think that are

will trigger by sound or whatever to record. Sure, busy, I've got I need to get brouxy going, right. But I am one of possibly of Americans that are bruxers, they say, there's a lot of people. It was a surprising amount to me. I did not think it was going to be that high. Yeah, and I don't really

know if it's I only know my experience. And you know, when I was reading through this, it was just triggering me all over the place because from grinding to nashing to clinching to t m J and TMP like I've got it all. Do you really have TMD? Because that sounds really bad. Yeah, it's just I'm a mess. Yeah. Have you ever heard of getting botox for TMD? Now, it's so, you know botox. It's from batulin and it it um paralyzes the nerves temporarily, but for a really

long time, like months. Um. You get it in your jaw, uh and it relaxes the jaw muscles. Actually interesting. I wonder while they're in there, I can get this cocoon under my eyeball taken away. You you have a cocoon under there? Yeah, it looks like a butterfly is about to sprout from this sleeping badge under my eye. I think it's as a lot of character. I don't think you should change do anything like that. No, No, no, I'm not worried about any cosmetic things. Good good, you're

looking good man, Thank you. I can't even see you, and I know you're looking good. Yeah, and well, you know, we'll I'll chat about my experience throughout this. But I do have I had been fitted for a a mouth guard, which I do not wear and I should. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean that's there's a it's supposed to be kind of helpful, but I also saw that it can actually make you brocks. I guess that'd be the verb, right,

it makes you brucks more sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I think the deal with the mouth guard is is it just provides a barrier between your teeth, so it doesn't stop you from grinding um or clinching or anything like that. But it's no there's no tooth on tooth the sexiest contact, right. It's almost like um giving condoms to teenagers. It's been demonstrably, irrefutably proven that it makes them have sex when they

otherwise wouldn't the same thing with a mouth guard. You probably wouldn't even grind your teeth, but you put a mouth guard on and you're gonna grind, you know. We get an alarming amount of emails from people who don't understand your I don't even know what you call it. It's not sarcasm humor. Sure, we can just throw it under the well. No, I mean when you say something and you're totally kidding, but you're just being deadpanned about it.

People by by that, Yeah, they catch on eventually, I think, or they don't and they think you're a monster. So let's let's get into this, okay. Because I didn't know much about teeth grinding. I do grind teeth, but not to a clinical degree. UM, So I didn't know quite a lot of this. But I I came across this article that was written by an n y U dental student named Jordan's Mashkevich. No, yeah, Mashkevich, I think I nailed it out of the park. Sounds like a dental

student from n y U if I've ever done. I just came across this paper. I don't, I don't. I don't remember what how I searched it, but um, anyway, it had some really interesting stuff in there. And the way that um possibly by now Dr Mashkevich put it um that as we understand brucks is um it occurs. It's cyclical, so it starts out and it follows a distinct pattern, and then it kind of crests intensifies, and then it wanes, it goes away, and then the cycle

eventually starts up again. And so that these these cycles can happen in clusters. So your actual like attack of brucks is um might only last somewhere in the neighborhood of like four to fifteen seconds. I think that's on the low end. But when you have a bunch of them, these different attacks, these cyclical attacks, and a cluster, it can add up to quite a bit over the course

of your your sleepy time. Yeah. I mean, if you're grinding for fifteen seconds and then taking off six or eight seconds and then grinding again, I don't I don't know what the distinction is. You just take a little little break, a little break. Yeah, your brain is like this is too much even for me, because to me, that's constantly grinding, right, So no, apparently that it doesn't. It's like there's an increase in it and then it's like gets really really bad and then it stops and

then it starts to slowly to to build again. I think what makes it cyclical and building is that it's also associated with an increase in heart rate and brain waves. Um, and you're so you're grinding your teeth, your heart is going faster, and your your brain is working over time, and then I guess it all just kind of crests and goes away for a little while. Yeah, and I don't think we said the I mean, we'll talk about

all the reasons this can be pretty bad. But you're exerting a lot of force, up to two d pounds of pressure per square inch, and that is not like even when you're chewing something super tough, for like saltwater taffy or something, it's like ten times the force that you use to chew food. Dude, saltwater taffy is so great. You're a big fan. I really am a big fan.

And it's one of those things where as I've gotten older, I've realized that some of this, like old time candy, like Nugat just plain old Nugat great, like it was perfected, Like we've perfected candy in a lot of ways a long time ago, and you overlook it now just because it's been around for so long in favor of like you know, a watching McCall it or some kind of go go candy bar today. But there and there's nothing wrong with watching McCall it's probably my favorite modern candy bar.

But saltwater, taffy, nugat, stuff like that. It's it's it really. It's been around for this long for a reason, I guess. Yeah, you love the candies that you can get for a nickel by reaching your hand into it. Well you can't do that kind of thing anymore, but by reaching your hand into a big germ bucket right full of discarded candies from children. Sure, but but they're individually wrapped, so I'm safe. You know, when a Little Bit Sweets used to love us, They used to send us that Newgat.

As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, they're the people who introduced me to Newgat. Straight. Yeah, it was one of those care packages of theirs. They they introduced us to Newgat and Honeycomb candy. Yeah, why don't they like us anymore? I don't know. I have to get in touch with the Liz and be like, what's up. Yeah, hint hint, Yeah, well we just did. So you were saying two hundred pounds of pressure. I saw, and that's per square inch. Um. I saw up to

two fifty pounds of pressure per square inch. That's about ten to forty times what you would exert normally when you're chewing. And as you can imagine, like your poor teeth can only take so much. And it's not just the pressure, it's the pressure combined with the grinding motion, right that can really wear down the old enamel. I saw something like ten times faster than somebody who doesn't grind their teeth while they sleep. Yeah, So I mean

that introduces yet another problem. So not only will it make your teeth, you know, wigglier and uh and just they can crack, they can fracture, you can wear them down to stumps. You get rid of that enamel, like you said, and then you're you know, just ready to get a cavity. Plus your nerves can be exposed. Oh god, have you ever got a root canal? Uh? Shockingly no, I have three fake teeth, but I've never had a

root canal. They are not fun. Yeah, and I still don't even quite know what it is, to be honest, I got So they go in and they actually remove the nerve at the at the base of the tooth like. It's just they can take the nerve out so you don't have any sensation right there anymore, which is good because by the time you need a root canal, you don't want to ever feel anything ever of any kind.

And I got one once by this guy over in Brookhaven, and he apparently is a master at root canals, because every den I've been to since then, this is years ago, has commented on like, what an amazing canal that guy did. Yeah, you can tell years later, I guess so, yeah, because I still get comments on it. Whenever I go to a new dentist and they take X rays, they're like, Wow, that's a really great root canal. It's not like the guy in the grocery store parking lot that fixes your

dent when you shop. Not really, he doesn't do that good of a job. I think the words root canal, just the combination of those two words is probably a top tenor for just most loathed combinations of words. That moist, well that's just one word. Oh combination of words um, moist anything, yeah, moist, underline, moist size, how about that?

That's pretty bag Uh. They did a little survey with the Chicago Dental Society, which is a real swinging club, and they found six of those dentists said that they are hearing about all clenching being sort of an increasing thing. I don't know when this was written, but um, apparently it's bruxism is on the rise, as is stress. Right, that's what they're saying. That they correlate it to stress and adults, and they think that it's basically as simple

as that. There's a lot of other things that can cause bruxism, as we'll see, but stress seems to be the number one driver of teeth grinding in grown ups. And as stress increases in our modern watchuma call it type world. Um, bruxism is increasing as well, which is sad. But at the same time, it's also like, okay, well then there's real hope for this. It's not like you have some biological short circuit in your brain that you'd have to go get like mot of surgery to cure,

to correct or cure. You're just riddled with anxiety, right exactly. Uh, And I don't think we've officially pointed out or maybe you did, that grinding is that back and forth motion and clinching is just sort of just locking your teeth together and you know, as if you're biting on ah irresistible saltwater taffy, so with clinching too. That seems to

be more associated with daytime bruxism than nighttime bruxism. And the other thing about daytime bruxism, so bruxism is considered a para functional habit is what it's called, like um, chewing on pen caps or biting your fingernails or something like that. It's like it doesn't serve a good purpose for like you're you're not breathing or eating or drinking, so you're doing other stuff with your mouth. That makes

it a para functional habit. But the thing about it is during the daytime, it's unconscious whether you're you're doing nighttime bruxism or daytime bruxism. But in the day you can stop and be like, oh, I'm clenching my teeth and stop yourself from doing it, so it's involuntary, but it's also unconscious. When you're asleep, you're probably not going

to wake yourself up, so you're going full bore. Yeah, And you know, I try and catch myself during the day when I clinch, and I find it happens a lot. What I've started doing. I don't know if it was a conscious effort or not, but I've started widening my tongue between my teeth. Kind of not at all times, but a lot of the time if my mouth is shut, I have my my tongue in between my teeth. I got to prevent that, like in the front or on the side, kind of all over. Man, So you're just

kind of constantly moving it. No, I just you know, you fatten that tongue out and it are you doing it? That's quite a talent. No, I can't do it. I'm impressed really with your tongue. Look, oh yeah, I guess I can't. I can, And I should point out to that. You know, the history of my fake teeth are well chronicled on the show, and I've talked about why. But it's not just from grinding like I've always been in my fingernails and that pressure forward you know, on the

front of your teeth is no good. And I've got shallow roots and sort of a host of things that kind of led to those those teeth not working out for me. Let me let me ask you this Um, where either of your parents bruxers? I don't know, and and I just I don't know. I don't I don't care to ask at this point. I couldn't want to bring it up. I mean, maybe I could, but it's

not like that would satisfy me in any way. Well, the thing is they think that it's an inherited trait because apparently your chances of broux ing are way higher if your parents are bruxers. But like, do I need one more thing to blame on my parents? Right? Exactly? Old, that's right, So just just chalk it up to the fact that you're a young woman who smokes. That's where you got it from. Because women are three times more likely to Brooks, and smokers are five times more likely

to Brooks. Right, Smokers people who drink heavily UM, and a lot of that they attribute to dehydration. And here's the thing. This one is what reveals the weirdness of all this to me. So your body becomes dehydrated um for whatever reason, and when you're dehydrated, a whole cascade of stressors just kind of take place in your body. Right. Um. It can trigger allergies and can trigger inflammation. It's just not a good jam for your body to be dehydrated.

The thing is is what your body does in response is make you grind your teeth, like they've shown, like you grind your teeth more when you're dehydrated. But like I was saying, that raises the big basic question that I've never seen anybody answer. Um, like why why? Why would you grind your teeth? What kind of a weird physiological response is that two things like stress, whether emotional stress or physical stress. It's a very bizarre thing for your body to be like, oh, que the cue the

teeth grinding, let's get rid of some of the stress. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think you could file all of the things I'm about to say under that same weird category of why. But the same reason you might tap your foot when you're nervous, or the same reason you might clench your fist if you have anxiety. Um, I think they're just your body's responses to anxiety. They come out in these little weird physical ticks. Yeah, I mean,

and then that makes sense. But to me, they're still like you can still keep walking back to you know, why teeth grinding? Why why clenched fits? Like, what do we get from it? The closest I've seen to an explanation is it's a stress reliever. And I get that. But again, like, maybe my question is where along the way in our evolutionary history did teeth grinding become the response rather than like, you know, blinking um in an alternating sequence really fast? You know, like why teeth grinding?

Because ultimately grinding your teeth produces more tension and more stress concentrated in your jaw. It doesn't get rid of it, It just basically concentrates it into one painful area. Yeah, I mean, one might say that one reason is because it's a silent form of releasing that anxiety. It's something you can do in a business meeting, something you can do in church or wherever you might feel really stressed out. You can't do primal screen therapy in the middle of

a tense meeting. Um. But I know what you mean. You're a man of science. You want to know the pathways of satisfaction that are that are happening there. I think yes, because that is the pathway to my satisfaction understanding. Should we take a break? Yes? All right? I'm gonna go grind for thirty seconds and we'll be right back. Oh how you feeling now? That was great? So it was a stress reliever for you. I'm not stressed right now.

Well except for everything in my life that's super stressful. Yeah, we got a lot going on, lot going on. We have a book that we're working on. Yeah, that's has at times been stressful. It has, but it also has been fun. Like I'm really proud of how it's coming together. No, it's great, it's fun, but it's uh, it's like, hey, you're all working from home now with a five year old, so you have half as much time and twice as much work. Enjoy it. This will be a fun process.

But no, we're coming up on the The finish line is in sight. Yeah, for sure. And it's been more fun lately for me, which is good. Good. I'm glad. And what's that book called? Oh oh are we plugging in? Um? It's called Stuff you should Know, Cole, And you always make me say that Part two an incomplete compendium of

mostly interesting things. That's right. And you can pre order now and you get a little pre order gift and if you have questions of out whether or not you get a pre order gift with the audio book, or whether where you can get as signed edition. We're trying to get answers to that stuff. We're new at this, Yeah,

we're brand new. Yeah we're green, we're green authors. Yes. Um. Okay, So we were talking about some of the things that cause bruck is um that they've definitely shown, and again, no one has ever explained why bruck is um, just how bruxism I guess, yeah, Like any kind of sleep disturbance can do it. I mean there's you know, we already talked about anxiety and stress, that's sort of that

seems to be the go to for doctors. But any kind of sleep disturbance, if you are on some weird bed in a hotel that is uncomfortable to you, that might cause you to to clench up during your sleep. Weird things like that. Yeah, if your bite doesn't form um symmetrically, I guess is the word to you? You actually, So that's called malclusion. And there's all sorts of stuff.

I didn't really as this, but there's all sorts of stuff to correct it, including shortening your jaw, which I'm like, Okay, we don't have hover cars, but we have surgery that can shorten somebody's jaw. I'm impressed. Right, Um, did you get that done? No? I considered having surgery at one point where they break your jaw and realign it and

then wire it shut. Um, but there was never a great time to do it because I have a job where I run my mouth for a living, right uh, And it just I don't know, it got to the point where I got to a certain age Ross like you know what, I just don't think I want that surgery. I'll live with my misaligned jaw and my t MJ and my TMD. Man. I hope you get the last part worked out. Thanks, so um, maybe it'll just magically

clear up when we're not podcasting any longer. Well, you never know, so uh, I remember you talking about getting a surgery, and that kind of jogged my memory. I didn't I didn't know you ever got it. But yeah, you probably couldn't wire your jaws shut, just fling just then you'd see you go. Should we talk work? Yeah, it would be kind of weird. Now people don't want to hear that for like sixty eight weeks or whatever it is, right, man, the soup though. Yeah, it probably

dropped the good wait, drink it to a straw. Yeah, but I mean there's there's some good soup out there. Grinded a cheeseburger, yeah, you could into soup. God. So I saw another thing, thanks to presumably doctor um Mashkevich's article, that they have connected teeth grinding to parasitic worm infections. Oh really yeah, And I was like that, I that

doesn't sound right at all. I went and looked, and yeah, there's there's a definite like um, like a bunch of papers dating back to the seventies where they're like, yeah, it seems like if you have pin worms or hookworms, they directly cause teeth grinding. Weird. I know that certain psychiatric meta since can and antidepressants and stuff could cause it.

This is one of the side effects sometimes could be co morbid with sleep apnea, which I've had people right in and say, hey, Chuck, check about sleep apnea because you have dreams about breathing water. That doesn't sound fun. Uh No, I don't think I have sleep apnea though, um, and maybe I'll get tested for that one day too. Yeah. Um. One other thing though about parasitic worms is actually correlates to something else that's mentioned in this article, which is

allergies can kick it off. And remember they think that parasitic worms has to do with either an increase in allergies or decrease in allergies or something. But they think that it's tied with allergies, So that would explain why it kicks off. Teeth grinding. Yeah, and I don't think we said that. You may not even realize that you're a brucks are I do because of my my history, But um, I think a lot of people don't even

lies they're gnashing their teeth in their night. You may wake up with a sword jaw and I wonder what was going on. Think you might have slept on your face funny or something. But a dentist can help diagnose that for sure, if you go in and say, hey, uh, something's going on here. Yeah, yeahs bitz. Yeah. If you live alone or you're not grinding your teeth enough to um wake up your partner, Yeah, there's there's gonna be

like little signs or whatever. But if you don't start paying attention to it, you might not notice it unless it's a bad case. If it's a bad case. You're gonna notice because your teeth are starting to crack and chip and wear down. And even if you don't notice that, your dentist is gonna be like I think you grind your teeth, and that might be the first person to tip you off. Yeah, swollen gums. That could also be

a little tip um. You know, mine sort of happened all at once with the job, like I've always had a bad bite, uh in. Two rounds of braces did not cure it. Oh man, So I've got sort of a it's not quite an underbite, but you know, my my top my bottom teeth of my top teeth are

aligned instead of having an overbyte. Right. And I remember distinctly when I started having these problems, like ten or twelve years ago, and I would tell Emily and said, it feels like my lower jaw is from someone else's body all of a sudden, huh, Like it just doesn't fit anymore. And that's the easiest way I could describe it. And it just kind of happened like suddenly, or you noticed it like in a short time started noticing it

over a shortish span ten or twelve years ago. I remember one time I was singing in the band for band night one time, and I had my mouth open, singing like, you know, if I might say so pretty powerfully, and something popped like I felt something almost like come unhinged. And it got worse after that. So I don't know what that was all about. Was that during your famous cover of Maria, Yes it was or oh Holy night? Uh we didn't change those for our closer so um.

Another sign that you might have bruck is um is if you wake up and you like the inside of your cheeks hurt because there have been rubbed draw off from the getting caught up in the bruck s ng uh huh. Yeah, that's that's when it will be particularly bad. You might also wake up with um bite marks from it, you know, not like you can see it, but you can definitely feel those. I went through a little period where I was biting, like where my canines are? You know,

I have like vampire canines, And I don't know. It was almost like what you were just describing, like all of a sudden, my my bite or my jaw or something just changed. And for like a month or two, I was biting this one part of my lip oor right corner and um, it was happening a lot and then finally it went away. No idea what happened, but

I'm just glad it it cleared up. Yeah. I'm a side sleeper sort of side slash chest sleeper, and I will tuck a pillow up under my arm and face as well as the one I'm laying on with my head, and I think that has contributed to sort of misaligning my jaw. And I looked online and sure enough, there are t MJ pillows I think to help thwart that. Have you seen like some of like the I think Casper makes one, there's one by Avocado. Um, they're they're

basically like anti snoring pillows. M I don't know. It lifts your head up so that your head's not going downward, which helps you, um helps it like keeps your your airway from being obstructed and hence snoring less. I can. It actually works really well. I'm a bit of a snorer and they they've cured it. I know you do. Were like the three stooges, uh and on. Since we're on the pillow front to the other thing that I do is I sleep with my arm kind of under

my head. You know and under my pillow Like I don't. I never know what to do with my arms as a side sleeper, and that has you know, sometimes I wake up in my arm will be numb from just being in a weird position. But they have these pillows now that that lift you up a little bit and have a little a little hatch there where your arm fits through. What. I haven't gotten one of those yet,

but I'm looking into it. Wow, it's amazing. The sleep product industry, and I'm not talking about mattresses is just ridiculously dents, you know, dents like memory phone. Yeah, I love a good memory phone. So so talking about you're talking about TMJ and t MD. From what I saw, TMJ is the name of the joint and TMD is the name of the disorder of the stuff hanging around that joint. Is that correct? Well, I've always heard it

called a t MJ disorder. They may have just shortened that to t MD. Okay, Yeah, I've always heard t MJ two I've I've I haven't even heard it called t MJ disorder, just t MJ. But from what I can tell is everybody's been getting wrong all these years that t MJ is the joint not the disorder. Yeah, Like if you say I have t MJ, They're like, yeah, everyone's got a temporo mandibular joint jerk, right, big whoop. But yeah, t MJ disorder. I think it's just become

one of those things that's shorthand. But yeah, I think t m D is inflammation of that joint. Uh. And you know that that can affect kind of your whole face. It can spread around to the other muscle and tissue pain swelling. We talked about swelling a lot, inflammation swelling. That's sort of the key to good health is keeping that down. That seems to be like what science is starting to figure out first all about inflammation, isn't it.

It seems like it seems like, um, there's also clicking and popping that comes along with it too, which is not fun either, not necessarily because it hurts. It's just distressing psychologically, like you get worried, like, oh man, is this next time you gonna is my jaws is gonna stay open? Yeah? Because isn't lockjaw like a potential outcome of TMD? I don't know, I don't know anything about lockjaw.

Is that maybe it's like a fleet circus is just one of those things that was made up, but everybody started to think it was I thought lockjaw came around because uh uh tetanus or whatever. Oh, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. It's like an infection. I forgot about that. And I think it's just it's not your jaw locking up. It's just a weird name for it. Oh. I thought, like your jaw like stayed open. Well, I think it can, cause it can cause muscle contractions in

your jaw. So maybe that is where the name comes from. But I think it's from like and I'm speaking out of my butt right now, but I think it's from like a bacterial infection and this is why you get TETNA shots. Yes, but that's weird that it would focus on your jaw muscles, you know, pretty specific. It is a mystery. Um, you want to take a second break and then come back and talk about kids and getting rid of this stuff too. Okay everyone, we'll be right back.

Wh Okay. So everybody knows adults are super angry. Not to be looked squarely in the eye easily set off that kind of stuff, and that that explains teeth grinding and adults mostly um that a M d M A. With kids, it's a totally different story depending on the age. And actually kids tend to grind their teeth um almost as a matter of course. They found that of babies grind their teeth, but they do it typically when they're teething,

which makes a lot more sense. Although grinding like your gums as the teeth are just breaking through is like it's like nails down a chalkboard to me, like that, yeah, yeah, like moist. I mean, I gotta say, there is something very creepy about a baby locking down on your pinkie before the teeth are in, but those teeth are right behind. That's that gum skin, right, It's very weird. It's very creepy.

It's nothing cute about it. Uh. If your baby, you might also grind your teeth because your top and bottoms aren't aligned as of yet, or like allergies like you were talking about, if they're congested. Um, the same and with adults it could be a sign of allergies or something. Yeah. Again, allergies produce inflammation, which produces teeth grinding, which is the key to the existence of life in the universe. I think if you are lot older and you're not like

a toddler, then it may be stress. It maybe um, just that kid anxiety which is super sad. Yeah, you might. You might have like a trouble at school or um, if your family just moved or something like that. It might produce teeth grinding. It might also make you eat entire ten packs of twigs in one sitting after school. Um, one of the two outcomes. Yeah, not speaking from experience or anything, just speaking in generality. By the time, I think they say not to worry about it too much.

If your kid is grinding their teeth before they're seven or eight years old, um, after between seven and eight and twelve is usually when it'll go away, once they get those big, weird looking adult teeth that are still in that kid's head. Yeah, and a big old attitude to accompany. Yeah, no kidding. But if you're kid is like over seven or eight years old and they're still grinding their teeth, you might want to go see a dentist. And they might say, go see a therapist. Yeah, why not, Frank,

I mean, or whatever their name might be. That's right, Frank the chair therapist. So, Um, the because it's so prevalent and because it clears up on its own, you're not going to treat your kids bruck is um, like you were saying, if it is pretty bad, though, your doctor might be like, let's get a mouth guard, and the mouth guard might help, probably will help. It won't

keep him from doing it. But um, one of the other things that I saw, like, if your baby does grind his or her teeth, Um, one of the problems that can have, which is probably why you would want to treat it, is that it can keep them awake at night, which makes them cranky during the day. So I could see wanting to treat teeth grinding, especially if it starts to become even remotely an issue. Although you're

not you don't have to. I could see treating it if it starts affecting my quality of daytime life exactly. But this article is so adorable. Um. It says, you know, there's some things you can do if you're your young your young child is grinding his or her teeth, you can draw him a warm bath before bed, to read him a story. That is just like that's the most heartwarming treatment for any condition. I've ever heard try reading

a story to your kid before bed. That's novel, right, Don't try to read him a novel though, Uh let me see. I think they also recommend, um, if you're an adult, something topical like an analgesic like tiger bomb below the ears, like sort of right there outside the jaw. UM. I don't know about that. I could give that a try, but I don't know if that'll keep me from grinding. Might just provide some relief. Have you tried warm baths

for yourself before bed? Get those thighs moist? Uh. It says here to keep your tongue in the roof of your mouth some that's sort of a version of what I'm doing. But I don't see how the roof of your mouth helps so much. I think it cuts down on um like the chance you might bite your tongue, but it's also keeping your mind focused on what your mouth is doing at any given time. That's what I would guess. UM. And of course, like there's a lot that you could do as far as like just relaxing

is concerned, Like meditation helps with absolutely everything. Um, not drinking as much, cutting down on caffeine, not smoking all those things are linked to it, um not chewing gum. So basically, you know how I think I've said recently where if you have like a sleep disorder that you like your bed, Who's I telling this to do you remember? M H, I don't remember either, but UM, that your bed should be just for sleeping, like go to bed

to sleep, like no TV, no reading, no nothing. And then you know, over the course of time, you'll train yourself to associate bed with sleep and you'll just be able to sleep better. Um. The same thing goes with these other um pair of functional habits like chewing on pencaps, chewing gum, chewing your fingernails, like you have to make sure you're not doing those because your mouth is just for eating and drinking and talking and breathing and that's it,

not for chewing or any grinding your teeth. And you can kind of train yourself And that really kind of gets to the heart of this whole thing, that it's a an unconscious habit that your that your body has said this is what we're going with for stress relief. So you're clearly stressed out, but you've developed a habit and you need to break the habit and there's some other techniques that seem to work fairly well that are aimed at breaking this habit of grinding your teeth. Yeah,

I mean I I chewed. I've always been in my nails, and I used to massacre pens and pencils in school when I was like elementary school in high school. I don't do that anymore because I literally stopped myself from doing it because I know how bad that is for my teeth. But um, you know, that's when I was a kid. I didn't have the you know, the smoothest childhood and home life. So maybe that was that stuff coming out. I don't know. I wasn't stressed about like

work and adult relationships and stuff. I guess, you know, maybe I always just had anxiety and never dealt with in a in a healthy way. I tend to think puberty is a pretty stressful event too, So going through that will make you go through a few pain caps. You know. Yeah, what's happening down there, doc stressing me out? My thighs are all moist. Oh no, so grind care. Um, this thing I thought was amazing. I looked it up and I'm like, here you go, this is what cures

teeth grinding. Yeah. I went to buy one today, but I don't live in Germany, Denmark or Sweden. That's the only place you can get them. Still, that's what it said on the website. Huh. So grind Care is a

it's a headband. They describe as a headband, but really it's these little modules that you put on either side of your temple basically, and it's a monitor that censors whether you are about to clench your jaw or not grind your teeth, and it shoots out a little pulsive electricity says no, I don't think so, and it relaxes your jaw. I mean, as soon as I saw this, I was like, that's it. That's the answer. Man. Well, hey, like listeners in Denmark, Germany or where, give me one

of these things? Sweden? Yeah, hook choke up. Yeah, it's it's amazing that it's not available outside those three countries. Uh, it really is, because it sounds like it works. They say that it reduces grinding by in the first three weeks, between weeks six and eight. Yeah, I mean I was sold. Maybe I can get my hands on one through the maybe dark web. We found out, so we had this this portrait made of Momo, and the artist was featured in Harper's Bizarre Netherlands, and she had the portrait of

Momo in the magazine. So yeah, but try to get your hands on a Harper's Bizarre Netherlands edition. You can't do it. I bet you could get one. You me was like, you know what, I'll bet the stuff. You should know, Army could help. So she went onto the s y s K Facebook Army page, was like, just asked for help and got a bunch of people who have offered, which is super nice. I am happy to report. I believe we're getting a few copies. It's fantastic. Yeah.

It was either that or flying to the Netherlands in the middle of a pandemic. Well, in any other time that might be a fun little adventure. It could be. But it was cool because everybody was just so happy to help to you know, Yeah, we have the best listeners on the planet. I drove to Vegas one time with my friend, you know, Johnny Pindell to get a T shirt and the drove back. Wow. What was the T shirt? If I remember correctly, Johnny wanted a heart

New York. No, I think it was a was it a Crispy Cream Vegas or some sort of larger brand with the Vegas specific specificity hard rock? I don't think it was. And this was, you know, prey, like you could buy anything on the internet at all times. So he's like, hey, you want to drive to Vegas. I want to get this shirt, and I was like, sure, let's do it. How long did it take you? I mean it's from l A. It's not far. Oh, I

was thinking from Atlanta. Good lord. Now it's like, wow, must have been one hell of a shirt, even from l A. That's pretty pretty impressive. Yeah, it's a common Did you guys engage in a huge drug collections free first? Oh? Sure, and start seeing bats and then blew it all on amal nitrate and blackjack. That's right. There was one other thing we should mention, though. There is a um apparently something you can put in your mouth. It's got a

nasty tasting liquid. I guess it's like a gel pack or something that you put between your teeth and when you bite into it when you're asleep, that thing is punctured and that you get that nastiness in your mouth. But I don't know that that would work. On me because I used to paint my fingernails with deterrent when it was an elementary school my mom. It was just super bitter, like the most bitter thing you could ever imagine, and I just chewed right through it. That's greatly didn't

stop me. This was so from from what I could tell, it was just a patent somebody has. It looks like a um a retainer. But then in the back where the molars are those packets and they suggested seawater or hot sauce, and I was like, jeezus, seems like it will wake you up. Apparently that's the point. Like, I guess you just annoy yourself into not grinding your teeth any longer because you just want to get some sleep. So what do you think, Chuck, did this cure you?

What's it gonna take? I don't know. I'm not having that surgery. And I don't like we're in the mouth guard I've worn. I wear the mouth guards sometimes when I know that I'm no for sure I'm going through a particularly stressful period UM but it's just it's not comfortable. You know, no one wants to wear those things. Well, if you are listening to us, in Germany, Denmark or Sweden. Hit chuck ups so he can get a grind care

from you. That's right. Uh. And in the meantime, if you want to know more about teeth grinding, go check out the article written by Jordan's Mashkevich called I can't remember what it's called, but anyway, just up Jordan Moshkovitch. I don't think there's more than one of them running around. Um uh. And there's other stuff all over the internet too. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail.

By the way, I bet you there are at least ten dentists in New York City named Dr Jordan Moskovitch. Do you think so? Sure? Okay, it just sounds like a dental name. You know. My first innis name was Dr Tuggle. Uh. That is a really great name in general. Yeah, Dr Tuggle. That's a great name for like a cat too, Yeah, Dr Tuggle, Dr Tuggle. One time I was in the airport. This is when we had our dog Buckley and we

called him Buckles a lot. And Uh, I was in the airport and Delta was paging someone at the little uh where you check in there, and they said paging Mr Buckles, Mr Buckles, can you come to the amazing just killed me? I immediately called himly. I was like paging Mr Buckles, all right, I'm gonna call this something that we got wrong, sort of you got wrong on the Heroin podcast, and we heard from enough people about

this that I thought it bore an email or a read. Hey, guys, As a former opiate addict now almost ten years clean, with lots of education and experience in this area, I'd like to gently suggest that a correction be noted. On your recent very good episode on Heroin and discussing the withdrawal detox period, Josh stated that an addict order to get through that miserable week of suffering, than he or

she would be essentially over the addiction. While it's true the acute phase of heroin withdrawal last about a week, addiction as a disorder far more complex and insidious and long term than physical dependency, which is only one aspect that a week's worth of detox can cure. A secondary kind of withdrawal can occur, known as post acute withdrawal syndrome pause, in which the brain has to sort of

recalibrate and heal from protracted dopamine and balances. Pause can trigger episodes of anxiety and profound depression, which can even lead a recovering addict right back into active addiction. Moreover, addiction rarely happens in a vacuum. Most addicts need long term support, therapy and coaching. You weren't suggesting that's not the case, by the way, to redevelop or develop coping skills that will enable him or her to live a

drug free life. But recovery from addiction is absolutely achievable. It's not short or simple as a few days of nausea, aches, and diarrhea. Thanks for all you do. That is from Jason and sant in tone nice Thanks a lot, Jason, I'm absolutely chuck. Thank you for bailing me out on that. That's not what I meant. But I definitely should have been a lot clearer than I was. Well, we should

have talked about pause, because that's a big deal. We heard from a bunch of people talking about pause, but boy, we heard from a lot of people that were current informer addicts. It was more so than our other drug podcast. It was really pretty enlightening and heartening and disheartening all at once. Yeah, I mean it really kind of got across, like just how widespread the opioid crisis is. You know. Well, thanks to everybody who wrote in uh and hang in there,

to everybody who's still struggling with addiction of any kind. Um, and thanks a lot Jason from Santa Fe or sant Intone san Intone. Um. If you want to get in touch with this, like Jason did, you can send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of

iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts, for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.