Feeling sleepless in Seattle?
If you’re tossing and turning in your sleep, or you feel like you never get a good night’s sleep, it could be related to your teeth.
Believe it or not, your oral health can play a significant role in the quality of your sleep.
Here are 5 Dental Issues that can Disrupt Your Sleep!
- Gum Disease – There’s a circle of sleeplessness connected to gum disease – the inflammation of the gums. When you don’t get enough sleep, your body creates hormones that cause inflammation, which in turn will inflame your gums, causing them to bleed, or feel sensitive. Research shows that people who get less than six hours of sleep a night have a higher risk for getting gum disease. Besides disrupting your sleep, gum disease can lead to tooth loss, as well as cause major health issues, including diabetes. The good news? One recent study found that treating gum disease may improve sleep quality, and in turn, overall health.
- Teeth Grinding – It’s a dental issue that’s on the rise, but most people don’t know they do it because a lot of teeth grinding happens during sleep. An American Dental Association survey found that 69% of dentists have noticed an increase in patients who grind their teeth. Chronic teeth grinding, aka bruxism in dental speak, affects people of all ages, and it will damage your teeth, your sleep, your health, and your wallet. While the increasing stresses of our daily lives can contribute to unconscious, nightly teeth grinding, there are remedies, like our custom designed night guards. Do you grind your teeth? You might not realize you are. Here are the symptoms to look for.
- Dry Mouth – Saliva doesn’t usually get much love, but offers so many healthful benefits, especially when it’s ‘flowing’ at the right levels. That’s about 2 to 3 pints a day! Your saliva works around the clock to fight tooth decay, gum disease, bad breath and it’s also vital to protecting your overall health. Sleeping with a dry mouth is a nightly nuisance that can further disrupt your sleep. If your dry mouth symptoms keep waking you up, there may be a more serious cause for it, such as health issues, or medications.
- Sleep Apnea – Do you snore? On any given night in Seattle, about 30% of adults will snore. A big culprit of snoring is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which causes an airway blockage when the throat muscles and tongue relax during sleep. When the oxygen is restricted, loud snoring starts, as well as deep sleep disruption for anyone in the same room. And the person creating the snores needs to wake up many times during the night in order to properly breathe again. Everybody needs a decent amount of deep sleep as it helps repair the body and improve your immune system. Not to mention your relationship with anyone who sleeps around you. If you, or someone you love snores, our snore guards can work wonders to help everyone sleep better at night.
- TMJ Disorder – Do you feel tired throughout the day, even though you think you’ve slept enough? The jaw pain and discomfort associated with TMJ disorders can significantly impact sleep quality, leading to a cycle of stress, and on-going fatigue during daylight hours. TMJ syndrome (or TMD) is actually one of the most commonly diagnosed jaw disorders in America that affects millions of people, but, again, many people don’t know they suffer from it, or have never been properly diagnosed. If you’ve noticed a pain in your jaw or a clicking noise when you chew you may have temporomandibular joint (TMJ) issues. This type of pain can be exacerbated when you lie down and can affect your sleep. If you’re experiencing regular head, neck or jaw pain that’s disrupting your sleep, and interfering with your daily life, we can properly examine you for TMJ disorder to develop a treatment plan that can offer some relief.
Not getting enough sleep at night? You’re not alone. More than a third of Americans report getting less than seven hours. Fortunately, if your sleeplessness is related to dental issues, we can help.
Whether it’s a night guard, a snore guard, or treating gum disease, we’ll do our best to protect your oral health, so that you can sleep better at night.
Don’t stay sleepless in Seattle, please give us a call at (206) 524-1000 to make an appointment or schedule a consultation online.