For decades, I have wondered why people clench and grind their teeth.
In dental school, I was taught that patients do that when they are stressed out. Therapy included drilling teeth down to even the bite so the jaws could grind in any direction without tooth interference.
The dental answer was to also make a maxillary night appliance to keep the teeth from wearing down. When I discovered, in the 1970s, that these appliances can take the brain cycle down to zero seconds, I made them for the lower jaw, not part of the moving cranial bone structures.
But these were allopathic answers that never really addressed the root cause of the problem. Often patients were told to get physiological help.
It got more puzzling when I saw small children clenching and grinding their teeth. They had no jobs, no money issues, no children, no worries, and loving parents. How could stress be the cause for them?
When I retired my dental license in 1997, I no longer could make jaw appliances and had to figure out the answer. The solution may lie in trauma to the full-body fascial web.
When I worked with children, I discovered that their fascial web can pull on their neck, jaw, and head areas. Maybe they were trying to relieve the pressure in their heads by grinding their teeth.
When I worked with adults, I found that, over the visits, they would report that their jaws felt more relaxed with significantly less grinding and clenching.
Virtually everyone on the planet lives with stress, but not everyone clenches or grinds their teeth. Trauma, including birth injury, may be an important predisposing factor for patients who grind or clench their teeth.
Gillespie Approach Training can unlock the healing door for patients.
