Gnashing of teeth due to the Corona crisis: ‘I woke up with pain in my jaw’

Karla Heetsma, 54, wakes up in the morning with a jaw ache. “Then it feels like I have bitten off something very hard and have a very heavy feeling in my jaw and a pain in my teeth,” she told EditieNL. Due to the Corona crisis, she suffers from a lot of stress, which manifests itself at night due to grinding of her teeth. “I am looking for work and this is very difficult at this time. I previously did a lot of volunteer work in theater and really enjoyed it.”

Now that that fades away, she is missing the distraction and the people around her. “I’ve been at home for months without doing anything. I don’t have a partner and I feel lonely because I no longer get around people at all. On top of that, I’m nervous because it doesn’t come in any money.” This stress also causes her physical pain due to her squeaking Her teeth. “I have a lot of neck pain and headaches, I’m totally stuck.”

Choose vertically in half

According to dentist Marcel Speck, she is not alone. “I recently had a guy biting his teeth completely vertically,” he told EditieNL. “The most common cause of teeth grinding is stress.”

In his practice, Bacon recently witnessed more and more young men grinding and beating their teeth. Knowing that many people, especially young people, have been subjected to high pressure due to the Corona crisis, and tension in the body can cause shrinkage or grinding. This can cause permanent damage.

Neck complaints

“When grinding, your jaws move past each other, essentially eroding tooth enamel. Even in a few weeks, you can really see a lot of wear and tear. And all of the wear you lose doesn’t come back. When you squeeze, you put pressure on yourself. Choosing heavily over each other, this mainly leads to joint complaints of the temporal joint, complaints in the neck and even headaches

Teeth grinding or grinding can be resolved in many cases by using a mouth guard or a natural jaw treatment. “A mouthguard protects your teeth and gives your jaw some relief. Additionally, in some clinics, you can also inject Botox into your jaw. But this is all for symptom relief. The best thing of course is to treat the cause and reduce stress.”

This is something Karla tries, too. “I would like to address the cause of the grinding, but this is difficult because the situation we are in does not change quickly.”