Night Guard: What's Worked for Me

Years ago, my husband told me that I was grinding my teeth at night, and a trip to my dentist confirmed this. I have no idea why I was doing this during this particular period (my dentist told me that people tend to grind their teeth when they are most stressed out, which makes sense, or when they're going through transitional periods, which I guess I was, or sometimes as a reaction to medication).

I took his advice and had a mouth guard made-- a lengthy, expensive process (I think it was about $300 at the time). This entailed having him make a mold of my mouth, then ordering the mouth guard from some lab. If only I had known that I could just get one of these at the drugstore-- aaarrgghh!

When the custom-made mouth guard came back from the dentist's office, I tried wearing it, but it was actually too big and clunky to be able to keep in my mouth all night. I was so disappointed. Luckily a friend of mine was having the same problem, and suggested that I just get a kit from a drugstore and keep experimenting until I found the one that was right for me. I actually found a couple of them that worked (listed below) which I used until the problem went away on it's own. The lesson I learned: do more research before you just take your dentist's word for it. I liked the drugstore one better, and it was WAY cheaper!