I bite my teeth hard together during sleep and wake with agonising toothache and I also get repeated abcesses. Does anyone else do this? Any idea on how I stop it before I lose all my teeth? I have fibro and take various painkiller for it, I also have a low dose of amtriptyline which I try not to take too often as it fuddles my head the next day.

I used to do this... my doctor had me buy one of those football mouthpieces and sleep wearing it.... makes it hard to grind. Also, have you tried yoga? I usually do this when I am STRESSED OUT. Yoga lowers the cortisol in your body...HTH
mjc

I started grinding my teeth at night after I quit smoking several years ago. It can develop into terrible pain and TMJ if you don't have it taken care of. My dentist made a mouth guard that I wear at night that prevents grinding and spreads out the clenching pressure. This can loosen and destroy your teeth so you really should get it treated. Good luck!

I've got a bite guard my dentist made me - in fact I'm on my second one in less than a year as I bit through my first one!
I don't feel stressed or anything and I usually quite relaxed when I go to bed. I am starting to lose teeth after repeated abcesses, so I'm desperate to find a solution before I end up with dentures!

Jems, ask your doctor to put you on another antidepressant that allows you to function during the day...there are better ones out there than amitriptyline. Celexa is really good with minimal side affects.Just taking amitriptyline off and on won't help to restore your sleep. You need to take an antidepressant on a continual basis. Also take calcium/magnesium 3 x aday totalling 1000-1500 mg. And if you like milk, a warm glass before bed does the trick...hope these ideas help...I've had fibro for almost 20 years now so I guess I know alittle about what helps...just wish I knew more...

The low dose amtriptylene is for pain relief rather than anti depressant, apparently it numbs the nerve endings or something like that. It just grogs me up something rotton the next day so my consultant at the hosp said to take about 3 times a week as it builds up in the system.

I seem to clench my teeth during periods of stress, I feel stressed quite often but don't know why as I haven't anything to get stressed about!

I've had fibro for about 17 years and have tried everything!

As luck would have it - I've got another dental infection - more antibiotics and the horrid man want sto take my tooth/teeth out! Plus I've had to fork out on 2 new bite guards! No wonder he drives a big car! I'm paying for it!!

I'm trying everything to reduce the sleep tension but its not working! Anyone any other ideas as I'm desperate!

Hi There!,
I used to have severe Tmj. After seeing many specialists and trying anti depresants, using a mouth guard and spending lots of $$ Nothing seemed to make a difference, until a friend reccomended liquid magnesium drink . i tried this and now i am able to sleep and my tmj has pretty much gone away ! i hope things get better for you

Hi
sometimes if you go too low on the lc diet can cause teeth grinding ( as well as terrible miscle spasms in other areas - as in calves). A too low LC can give you Tmj or worsen it also.
If you do have to LC, make sure you stay in the same range each day ...say 30 g /day...or better yet try to be at the max leel were you still loose.
hth

Been to hosp to see dental surgeon and he's going to do a small op to remove all the infection in my jaw - yeugh!! Although it won't help with the biting. He didn't seem to be able to suggest anything other than antidepressants, but unless he writes to my doc, my doc won't prescribe them for me.
Also had cortisol and adrenal tests and I'm running on empty, would that make any difference?
I had this before I started low carbing, but my diet is still quite high - approx 70g a day. So I don't think it's that.

My husband does it but he's done it as long as I've known him. I bought him a dental guard from the pharmacy that you can mold to your own teeth. It seems to at least prevent him from taking the enamel off his teeth and grinding them down to nothing.

I grind my teeth and clench my jaw, mostly in my sleep. It gets worse when I get migraines. They can make bite splints out of a softer material now that's much more comfortable than the really hard plastic. I think it's just a harder, "fancier" form of football mouth guards that you can get at any drugstore or discount store (at least here in the US).

The neurologist tried me on several different antidepressants to try to reduce the migraines -- come to think of it, within one year he tried me on every antidepressant (not at the same time, thankfully). They didn't work on the migraines, and they had absolutely no effect on the teeth grinding.

Remember, every body is different. I hope you're feeling better. Oral surgery and infections can be awful.