Better late than never.

Fawks

Look under the term abfraction.

Tooth abrasion can be from numerous causative agents including
abfraction, tooth brush abrasion and gastro-intestinal disroders (acid
erosion).

Flap

http://flapsblog.blogspot.com

Hah.

Go for it!

I disagree, but you may want to go for it anyway.

Joel

When I was doing my residency, I was taught that for recessions, one
needs to have three things:

-Susceptible gums/bone: usually thin gum tissue over long and thin bone.
The thicker support sturctures tend to give pocketing disorders.

-Brushing method that is traumatic. Here people always fall down by
claiming that they already use a soft brush, etc... The trouble is that
what is traumatic in one mouth is not necessarily so in another; brush
soon after eating, but VERY LIGHTLY: count your strokes from one to ten,
and then move methodically to the adjacent area, and so on around your
mouth. The longer you wait to brush, the harder it becomes to remove the
plaque.

-Abnormal forces on those susceptible teeth. Here is where a splint will
PERHAPS help. If you get a normal mouth guard type of thing, the forces
on those back teeth can increase. You are better off getting a splint
like an NTI, which tends to reduce those forces. Here I talk from
personal experience. I wear one, and I know it can help you. It will
relax your head and neck muscles and allow you to feel good in those
areas when you wake up in the morning.

From this standpoint, I would say that you DO have gum disease; you just
have active recessions instead of active  pocketing. The end result is
the same: you are losing prescious bone support around your teeth. The
thing that is really bad about this kind of disease is that you won't
have any symptoms until things are quite far along. This is a bit like
heart disease that is cought early.

So, to use a cheezy old experssion; It's later than you think. The slow
but progressive destruction in your bone and on your teeth will continue
even now while you contemplate what you will do.

Might I suggest that you introduce your dentist to the NTI at

http://www.nti-tss.com

unless s/he already knows about it. S/he can make one for him/herself at
the same time, and you will both benefit. Ask for a payment plan. If
s/he balks, tell him/her that you've been going to that office for
years, etc; and also that the dentists who prescribe the NTI are listed
on that web site. It behooves him/her to become on of those dentists.

Please note that like the other riff-raff that inhabit this NG, I have
no affiliation with the NTI people, it's just that I believe in their
product and use it. So do many of my patients.

Hope this helps
SP

He was right the first time.  And he's right now.  Both are contributing
factors to recession...particularly in the presence of periodontal disease.

Get the occlusal guard.

Occlusal trauma can lead to gingival (gum) recession,
abfractions, and tooth fracture.

The above is to give you some terms to search with.

Most docs here recommend the NTI
headacheprevention.com

Got headaches ?
--

W_B
Take out the G'RBAGE
wubbabubbazG@RBAGEyahoo.com