TMJ Splints
What are TMJ Splints?
TMJ Splints are devices that position the jaws in a specific place.
The goal of TMJ Splints:
1. keep the teeth apart
2. prevent grinding of teeth
3. deprogram the muscles of the jaws
4. improve pain
5. attempt to place the jaw joint over the TMJ disk.
What kind of TMJ Splints are there?
There are essentially 3 types of splints out there.
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"flat plane" upper teeth splint
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"flat plane" lower teeth splint
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anterior repositioning splint
Maxillary "flat plane" TMJ Splint
Maxillary or Upper Teeth TMJ splints are designed to keep the teeth from touching. This is helpful because the damage caused by grinding teeth throughout the night can be very detrimental to your TMJ Pain. This also saves your enamel from chipping and cracking as place incredible force on your teeth. Maxillary TMJ splints also put your bite into an ideal bite. In dentistry the way that your teeth glide across each other is vitally important. When you slide your jaw forward only your front teeth should touch. This is call anterior guidance. When you slide side to side only your canine tooth should touch. This is called canine guidance. These principals are important in balancing your bite and thus your muscles. If your bite is not this way a maxillary TMJ splint can place you into these ideal positions during movement which will effectively unload your TMJ and muscles.
Mandibular "flat plane" TMJ Splint
Mandibular or Lower Teeth TMJ splints are designed to keep the teeth from touching, much like the maxillary flat plane splint. This provides all the benefits you can see above with the maxillary splint. The advantage of the mandibular splint is that it is easier to tolerate throughout the day. It interferes much less with speech than the maxillary splint because your tongue presses against the palate for many sounds. The other advantage of the mandibular splint is that it is harder for other people to notice an so is more esthetic for all day usage.
Anterior Repositioning TMJ Splint
The anterior repositioning splint holds the lower jaw forward. This splint also keeps the teeth from touching which provides the benefits previously discussed. This splint however doesn't allow free movement like the other splints. The advantage of this splint is that it can help to "recapture" the TMJ disk. Oftentimes the TMJ disk gets "slipped" forward. That means your TMJ is bone on bone at rest. This can be a large reason for much of your pain. The anterior repositioning splint brings the lower jaw forward to sit under the disk. Using this kind of splint for a short amount of time can be beneficial because it allows inflammation and pain to calm down before moving into other treatments like repositioning the TMJ disk back where it should be with arthroscopy.