I’m coming across a lot of news items about sleep apnea recently blaming it for everything from increased night time peeing to snoring but I would never have linked it to bruxism (teeth grinding).
According to researchers at the American College of Chest Physicians Bruxism is a condition that afflicts millions of Americans each year and a lot of them it appears also happen to suffer from sleep apnea. This link between grinding your teeth at night and sleep apnea is related in a few different ways which include high levels of stress and anxiety, depression and high caffine consumption.
It was noted that men are much more likely to suffer from these sleep related problems than women probably due to the higher levels of perceived stress they experience in their normal daily activities.
Bruxism can be easily diagnosed by your dentist although diagnosing sleep apnea can be more time consuming usualy involving an overnight stay at a sleep clinic. I’ve reported on other new and innovative methods of detecting sleep apnea by recording the sounds of your snoring on for example an Iphone but how accurate they are has yet to be determined.
Be aware that sleep apnea can potentially be damaging to your health if left untreated so before self medicating with over the counter remedies go and get it checked out with your physician.
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