​ Anxiety. It might not seem like one of the big reasons to go to the a dentist. In fact, anxiety seems more like a reason to avoid a dental checkup. Your smoking habit or the sharp pain you felt when you ate that bowl of ice cream last night seems like a more likely reason to schedule an appointment. However, stress can cause a variety of issues t...

​ Do you grind your teeth? Did you know that you even if you answered no to this question, you may be grinding them while you're sleeping and not even know it.The National Sleep Foundation has revealed that about 8 percent of adults grind their teeth during sleep. This condition is also known as jaw clenching, or bruxism in the medical world. While...

Picture this: You’re finally getting treatment for your TMJ disorder. You’ve been prescribed neuromuscular orthodontic treatment, but Dr. George has prescribed you not one but two different mouth guards - one to wear during the day, and one to wear at night. Why do you need two different mouth guards? You have the same mouth no matter what time of day it is, right? So what’s the big difference between day and night guards, anyway? Day Guards Day mouth guards are designed to discreetly fit over the teeth without being obvious. With a day guard you can still speak and carry on normal activities while preventing things like bruxism (teeth grinding) and positioning your jaw into place. Day guards also help prevent you from using your teeth for other bad habits like nail biting, because they must be removed to chew anything. Night Guards Night guards are equally as functional as day guards, but with less concern about being discreet. Night guards address a variety of issues such as bruxism, sleep apnea and aligning of the jaw to its optimal position. With time, neuromuscular orthodontics, including your night guard, can adjust the jaw positioning so that you may not need to wear a night guard that is bulky – or you may not need to wear a night guard at all. Do I Really Need Two Mouth Guards? Just as not everyone’s TMJ disorder is the same, not everyone will require the same TMJ disorder treatment. This includes the use of day and/or night guards. You may not want to wear two different night guards around the clock, but for best results, and for the sake of your teeth, if Dr. George prescribes two mouth guards for your treatment, trust her expertise and wear your day and night guards as prescribed. Want to learn more about mouth guards to treat TMJ disorder? Call Dr. George's office at 724-220-2347.

You already know that maintaining a healthy body weight is key to living a long, active life, and that losing weight can help prevent myriad illnesses, from diabetes to heart disease to cancer. But what you may not realize is that maintaining a healthy weight can also help ease the symptoms of another painful condition that affects millions of people each year: temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMJD.

Full-mouth reconstruction: it’s a mouthful, all right. Not only is it a lot to say, but it can also be a long, multi-stage procedure. The good news is, the benefits certainly outweigh the time and expense you invest into it. That’s because in addition to improving your smile, full-mouth reconstruction can improve a lot of other areas too. If you think full-mouth reconstruction is purely cosmetic, think again. Here are some significant ways that full-mouth reconstruction can improve your life.

If you’ve ever been told you have a "bad bite," chances are you can see for yourself that your teeth are out of alignment. From a strictly cosmetic standpoint, a bad bite doesn’t usually look so great, and most people who have bad bites have probably considered correcting them with braces or other orthodontics. But a bad bite can be far more serious than simply having crooked teeth. A bad bite can not only cause uneven wear on the teeth, but it can also cause damage to the teeth, jaw soreness, bruxism (or teeth grinding) and even temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ disorder).