You finally decided to deal with the grinding. Maybe your dentist brought it up, maybe your partner did, or maybe you woke up one morning with a jaw that felt like you spent the night chewing rocks. Then you went shopping and hit a wall of options. Soft, hard, hybrid, and a row of millimeter numbers that mean nothing to a normal person. Let us clear it up. The thickness...
Read MoreEveryone wants whiter teeth. The options for getting there at home range from genuinely effective to basically useless, depending on what you buy, how you use it, and what type of discoloration you're actually dealing with. There's also a significant amount of marketing noise in this space. Here's a straight breakdown of each method, what it does, and how to have realistic expectations before you spend money on something that...
Read MoreA retainer does its job invisibly, which means most people don't think about cleaning it until something goes wrong. That usually means a smell that wasn't there when it was new, a cloudiness that didn't used to be there, or a yellow tint that no amount of rinsing seems to fix. All of these are preventable with the right routine. There's also a fair amount of bad advice floating around,...
Read MoreHere's the frustrating thing about teeth grinding: most people have no idea they're doing it. You fall asleep, grind your teeth for hours, and wake up with a dull headache and a jaw that aches, with no memory of any of it. Your partner, though, has a very vivid memory. Bruxism, the clinical term for teeth grinding and jaw clenching, affects around 10% of adults and up to 15% of...
Read MoreIf you have a Health Savings Account or Flexible Spending Account, you already know the general idea: pre-tax dollars, qualifying medical expenses. What a lot of people don't realize is that custom night guards for bruxism fall squarely into that category. That's not a loophole. The IRS classifies dental night guards as a qualified medical expense when used to treat a medical condition like bruxism or TMJ. If you're paying...
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