[roolah]

Similar story. Moved to Bay Area, coworker recommended dentist told me I need to pull all 3 wisdom teeth left and get a night guard. Quotes me >$3500.

Funny that I went to the dentist in my home country just before I moved and they said all good. Went to another dentist (which I'm still with and absolutely love) and over past 4 years we haven't pulled a single wisdom tooth and I still don't have a night guard.

[teekert]

And the piece has at the very beginning: "The idea of growing new teeth is every dentist's dream. I've been working on this since I was a graduate student. ..."

I'm not sure how involved this new teeth growing process is, but I can imagine it's not going to suck as much value out of you as a dentist can. Perhaps this isn't even done at the dentist (I hope so actually.)

I always felt like I was getting screwed by my dentist, but then I walked through a, what we'd here call a "volksbuurt", a neighborhood that isn't particularly rich. Saw a dentist, and it seemed more like a community place. I walked in, registered and have loved it ever since. They think along with me, tell me to get insured because something big is coming up next year and they can shift the current work to January (when the new insurance starts), they are very transparent about cost, explain why things are needed. I really appreciate that. They even told me that the pain I experience can go away without any major intervention if I really started to floss daily, it worked indeed.

Similar stories exist for garages (the place where they fix your car).

[flakeoil]

I have a bad experience with night guards and it seems to be something dentists like to prescribe unfortunately. I got one as I had pain in one tooth and it was due to grinding and closing my mouth hard in the nights.

Once I started with the night guard I got even more pain and after a month or two my tooth cracked and had to be repaired.

As there is even less space (as you have the plastic stuff between your teeth now) it seems you press even harder which damages the teeth even more. Maybe against light grinding movement it can help, but against pressing your teeth hard together at night it does definitely not help.

The best advice I got was to remind yourself at night when going to bed (and during the night when you notice it) to open your mouth a little (still with the lips closed) so that the teeth do not touch. It's a habit thing. I also noticed I grinded/pressed my jaws together more if I went to bed late.

[dsego]

Maybe the pressing the tongue against the palate and practicing proper tongue posture (so called mewing) isn't without merit. The force of the tongue counteracts the jaw muscles.