r/bruxism

I’ve done a sleep study and found that I don’t have sleep apnea but I’ve tried what feels like every other thing under the sun to try to stop clenching at night. Every supplement, Botox, several types of biofeedback, hypnosis, yoga and meditation, every different type of mouth guard and countless other things. My clenching is reduced now from how it was but still happens most nights and causes a ton of pain on a daily basis. Are we just resigned to dealing with this indefinitely if there isn’t something clear cut that causes it?

Hi!
Has anyone with an open bite (most of my front teeth are flared so don’t touch when biting down) found an online nightguard supplier that made a guard that worked for them? My old one was Dentist made and was wide enough in the front so that my bottom teeth could meet up with them. However I had a new Dentist one made and it is more narrow in the front, so only my very back molars are connecting.

I’m 27 and I wear a night guard and everything. But I’d love to figure out why. What else helps?

Hi all! My dentist thinks I might be clenching my teeth or grinding my teeth at night.

I don’t think that I am? But I’ve had a very un-nerving thing happen to me lately. My tongues has felt very off. Almost “numb” or kind of tingling?

I’ve seen my MD about this, he thinks maybe reflux. My dentist thinks grinding or clenching could be the problem. So I got a VERY expensive night guard to try.

But after lots of research on here, google and chatGPT I’m finding nobody else who has this issue, which is terrifying me. My doctor said we can try reflux meds and the night guard and if that doesn’t work probably a MRI, he thinks there is an outside chance it’s neurological! Which is even more scary!

Just seeing if this has happened to anyone else!

Thanks

This will be a long haul, but I think it’s worth it. For context, I am a 23 year-old woman.

Back in 2023 after an incident with birth control side effects, I dealt with six months of excessive bleeding, which led to me being hospitalized with blood loss and chronic anemia. Since then, I have treated it as issues have popped up, but not worked on maintaining my blood count. Since I graduated from college last year, I’ve had more time to focus on my health and address the root causes rather than treating individual symptoms. Overall, I feel like my immune system has been taking a beating and I have not done the proper work to help my body thrive.

I have been dealing with TMJ since I was 18 but it has become significantly worse in the last 2 to 3 years. This has led me to seek treatments in physical therapy starting this week as suggested by my dentist for the dental issues it has caused. I have dealt with jaw pain, tension in my face, headaches, and Dental wear and tear.

Since my bleeding episode three years ago, I have also seemed to deal with reoccurring fungal symptoms from my weakened immune system and not addressing these issues together. I’ve had on and off yeast infections, or oral thrush, sores in the corner of my mouth (which can also be from an iron deficiency), digestive issues (which I historically have not had), nail symptoms, and general skin symptoms that are linked to yeast. In the past I have treated this by eating a shit ton of yogurt and kefir. But I would also notice when I would slip up on my intake in physical ways, like vaginal yeast symptoms, and oral thrush.

Anemia has been a consistent issue since I’ve begun menstruating, which is what led me to begin birth control. I will go through peaks and valleys of iron maintenance on my end, which is my fault. My consistent anemia symptoms are bruising, feeling cold, fatigue, menstrual changes, and shortness of breath.

Here is where this all comes together. One month ago, I became very ill with influence a which developed into acute bronchitis. This was treated with my doctor through proper protocol, which includes antibiotics (side effects often include yeast infections and thrush). I have felt like these have exacerbated by existing issues listed above and brought them to the forefront of what is actually going on with my general health. Through my general research of these topics individually, and looking further online at medical studies, I believe that my anemia, recent antibiotic use, and general immune and vitamin deficiencies has led to the Candida overgrowth in my system (Fourie).

My theory is that the Candida overgrowth is also linked to my TMJ. I am led to believe this since I have been with my current boyfriend. We have been seeing each other since January and over the last month or so he has also mentioned having jaw pain, which is new for him. Obviously, we have been swapping spit and been sexually active, and I am wondering if my overgrowth has been transferred to him leading to these similar symptoms.

After a little bit on looking online forums, I have seen people reporting issues of jaw pain and also deal with IBS, Crohn’s disease (more susceptible to candida issues), and other GI related issues.

Our bodies are working organisms, and I am starting to believe that all of these issues are tied together. I hate the term “gut health” but I do believe that people have found relief with diet changes and that maybe those changes led to reduced candida growth. I will be conducting an experiment over the next few months and I will report back here consistently with my findings.

Plan of attack:
Anemia treatment plan
\- Ferrous Sulfate, 325mg three times a day for one week and then once a day thereafter (per my dr recommendation based on my current blood work). I will be taking these on an empty stomach and avoid dairy and calcium for two hours on both ends.
\-Vitamin C supplement with each iron supplement to increase iron absorption.
\-Vitamin B6 (folic acid) and vitamin B12 daily for red blood cell production (dr rec).
\-Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) (Datta Mitra).
\-Vitamin K (dr rec) for cardiovascular health (AlBlooshi).

TMJ Treatment plan
\-I begin physical therapy for TMJ this week based on my dentist’s recommendation.
\-I am looking into getting Botox to weaken the muscle wall, rebuilding habits, and PT.
\-Once these are addressed, I am working with my dentist to get Invisalign to fix the Dental issues from jaw clenching.

Candida treatment plan
\-Vitamin D3 taken with a fat for better absorption (Kherad).
\-Vitamin B12 and iron, see anemia treatment plan above (Jenkins) (Fourie).
\-Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) see anemia treatment plan above (Lei).
\-Magnesium supplement (Hans).
\-Zinc supplement (Roselletti).
\-Probiotic supplement.
\-Increased water intake.
\-Boric acid suppository for 7 days.
\-Swapping out my toothbrush.

I will be following this as well as a reduced sugar and yeast diet as well as I can. This all just clicked for me as I was doing research and trying to fix all these health issues individually. My quality of life could in general be improved by no longer having to manage one off symptoms.

Maybe all my issues are just from not addressing my anemia leading to weakened immune system which opened my vulnerability to a Candida overgrowth which I haven’t really done anything to fix.

I will report back and I am interested in everyone’s thoughts and experiences.

Cited sources:

AlBlooshi S (2025) Vitamin K and women's health: a review. Front. Glob. Women’s Health 6:1590414. doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2025.1590414

Datta Mitra, Ananya, and Ralph Green. “Unusual Micronutrient Deficiencies as Causes of Anemia.” Nutrients vol. 18,4 664. 18 Feb. 2026, doi:10.3390/nu18040664

Fourie, Ruan et al. “Iron at the Centre of Candida albicans Interactions.” Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology vol. 8 185. 5 Jun. 2018, doi:10.3389/fcimb.2018.00185

Hans, Sandeep et al. “Magnesium impairs Candida albicans immune evasion by reduced hyphal damage, enhanced β-glucan exposure and altered vacuole homeostasis.” PloS one vol. 17,7 e0270676. 14 Jul. 2022, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0270676

Jenkins, W M et al. “Nutritional deficiency in oral candidosis.” International journal of oral surgery vol. 6,4 (1977): 204-10. doi:10.1016/s0300-9785(77)80010-0

Kherad, Zahra et al. “Vitamin D3: A promising antifungal and antibiofilm agent against Candida species.” Current medical mycology vol. 9,2 (2023): 17-22. doi:10.18502/cmm.2023.345062.1416

Lei, Junwen et al. “Riboflavin Targets the Cellular Metabolic and Ribosomal Pathways of Candida albicans In Vitro and Exhibits Efficacy against Oropharyngeal Candidiasis.” Microbiology spectrum vol. 11,1 (2023): e0380122. doi:10.1128/spectrum.03801-22

Roselletti, Elena et al. “Zinc prevents vaginal candidiasis by inhibiting expression of an

Over the past years I’ve been dealing with grinding and clenching my teeth both during the day and night because of anxiety and stress. Ive worn down lots of teeth to the point where they don’t feel right when chewing anymore almost like there slipping against each other. It also feels like my teeth are hard or round like I’m biting down on little balls even though there pointy. my back teeth don’t feel like they meet up anymore and on my left side it feels like my teeth are only hitting on one tooth when I chew. I went to the dentist to get it all fixed but he did the bite mark test and it shows that there all good. I have a night guard that I wear but I do a lot of grinding during the day. How do yall deal with bruxism and also the feeling of obsessly focusing on how wrong your teeth feel?

Hi everyone,

Today is day 7 of having a constant daily headache and it’s making me really anxious. I’m a 26-year-old man, and since I was around 19 I’ve been dealing with frequent headaches. I also used to take paracetamol very often for them (probably 5 times a week on average). Sometimes I could go a week without taking it, but that didn’t happen often.

For a long time I’ve had headaches almost every day, but now it has become completely daily. Two days ago I took 4 paracetamol tablets, but the headache still didn’t go away.

The pain is mainly in the front of my head. It feels like a constant dull/pressing ache that gets worse when I strain or put pressure on myself. Every step hurts, and it gets slightly better when I completely rest and do nothing.

I went to a physiotherapist 2 days ago, and they noticed a lot of tension in my face and jaw muscles. I clench/grind my jaw almost all the time (while exercising, sitting at the computer, joking around with my girlfriend, etc.). My jaw muscles are also painful to touch.

Yesterday I went to my doctor, and he told me I need to stop taking paracetamol immediately because it could be causing medication overuse headaches. He said I could take ibuprofen instead if needed, but I’ve also read that frequent ibuprofen use can cause headaches too.

The difficult part is that I can only get an MRI of my brain at the end of June, and my EEG isn’t scheduled until October to figure out what kind of headaches these are. That feels so far away. I honestly don’t know what to do anymore. I really want these headaches to stop because they’re driving me crazy.

Does anyone have tips or similar experiences?

Some additional symptoms/details that might help:

• I feel dizzy daily, but I’ve had that since childhood due to hyperventilation/anxiety issues
• I sometimes wake up with extremely dry eyes during certain periods
• I never feel well-rested or fully refreshed after sleep
• I’ve had tinnitus for about 3 years after a noise trauma
• The headache is almost always located in the front of my head

Does this sound like migraine, tension headaches, TMJ-related headaches, or medication overuse headaches to anyone?

I’d really appreciate any advice or experiences.