After a night's sleep, do your jaws hurt when you wake up in the morning? Do you find yourself grinding your teeth when you feel nervous and anxious? It is quite a common phenomenon. If you have painful jaws and grind your teeth, then it's possible that you have TMJ, which we dentists call temporomandibular joint disorder. It sounds serious but it simply means you are a nocturnal teeth grinder. Teeth grinding and snoring are thought to be linked somehow.

The first signs of TMJ are aches in the jaw muscles. By ignoring the symptoms, you are not doing any favors for your teeth. This is because your teeth will chip and wear away because of the grinding. Make a date to see me at my Fairfax City dentist office and we'll see what we can do for you. Maybe, you could get a dental mouth guard to stop any more teeth from wearing down. Otherwise, you might need a Fairfax City dentist crown.

A Fairfax City dentist crown can be of great help. But only if your teeth have really worn down. That means you have probably had TMJ for many years. What I do is look at the cusps, or pointy parts, of your teeth. The molars and pre-molars will show them up pretty well in normal teeth. If they are flattened out, I would strongly suggest you get a crown.

If you leave it like it is, you could have problems eating several kinds of food. It may also contribute to problems with your speech. Not only that, in severe conditions, it may even affect the alignment of your upper and lower jaws.

First I will remove some of your tooth matter. This is to make room for the crown. These parts of the tooth are also called the enamel and dentine.

After clearing the tooth, I will put in the precious metal alloy for the Fairfax City dental crown. I don't need to take away much enamel. The reason is the substance I put in is so strong. And you don't need much of it either.

Then again, you may not want precious metal. If you would rather have things like ceramic and porcelain, I must go beyond the outer enamel and scrape away some of the inner dentine as well. This is to ensure that you don't have problems in the future.

In most cases, you couldn't do much better than a hybrid dental crown. This is made from porcelain and metal, which is very strong and protects your tooth. In addition, it looks like a real tooth. It's a great two-in-one deal.