For sailors

Sleep disturbances, blood pressure fluctuations, migraine headaches, tinnitus, hearing loss, and changes in facial expressions can all be symptoms associated with dental pathology. Morning migraine headaches and facial swelling are common among sailors on long voyages. It seems as if a person is resting – but wakes up in the morning tired and irritable, with a feeling as if he had chewed something all night. What is the reason? And the reason is the wrong bite.

We use a computerised method (myography) to measure the muscle tone potential: we see which of the temporal or masseter muscles are hypertonic and which are relaxed. Then we equalise this occlusal relationship by increasing the bite. To do this, the patient is made a mouth guard according to the teeth impression – a special plastic plate, which is put on the teeth at night, on the principle of a boxing tyre. And the person sleeps in it. What for? During the day a person talks and uses facial expressions, thanks to which the blood flow of the brain is more active and balanced. But at night, a person with an improper bite has a clamped vascular-venous bundle, blood outflow becomes weak, and hypoxia of the brain increases. As a result, the person wakes up with jaw pain, swelling and migraine. If this happens regularly, the accumulation of such fatigue in the body causes the most negative consequences. This is why we use a mouth guard at night: it relieves joint blocks and reduces muscle tone, blood flow stabilises and brain hypoxia does not occur. In addition, in this way we prevent tooth erosion.

Sailors order two or three mouth guards from us per voyage. Their labour is more stressful – away from home, in a small team. Accordingly, the psycho-emotional strain is greater, and hypertonicity is higher. That’s why in a couple of months they “eat” such a plastic mouth guard in their sleep. Otherwise they would erase their teeth.