Oh. Take it from me, go see a dentist, and ask them to look for cracks in your teeth, and receding gums. If they do a panorex x ray they can also look for bone growth in your jaw.

I clench, didn’t know about it for years and so didn’t have a mouth guard. Have a bunch of cracks in my molars now. My dentist always used to say these sort of cracks were the biggest problem in adult dentistry.

The solution is to get a mouth guard. Bottom guard type seems preferable. This will prevent future cracks, protect your gums, and protect the jaw joint. Unfortunately it doesn’t solve the problem, but no one seems to have figured that out yet.

You can also use a Sleepguard device to measure clenching activity. A bit clunky, but it has been very useful for me in figuring out triggers for worse clenching and confirming I do it.

My clenching started after that same jaw injury, I think. Or wisdom teeth extraction.

Someone else recommended off the shelf guards. I would suggest a custom splint from a dentist. If the splint is misaligned you can clench unevenly and cause jaw structure changes.

This company:

https://jsdentallab.com/collections/guards

makes pricey but very effective and comfortable mouthpieces for wearing at night while sleeping and/or during the day. They look exactly like the ones some NFL players use. I love mine. If I'd used one before discovering them three years ago at age 69, I wouldn't now be getting a mouthful of astronomically expensive ($6k apiece for extraction/bone graft/Ti screw placement/tooth) dental implants.

My qualification: retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist

Apparently this is suddenly a bigger issue during the pandemic. I’ll look for that article...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/well/live/dentists-tooth-...

You're supposed to clench your teeth together when you sleep. What's the alternative? Hanging your mouth open?