Stuff You Should Know - Bruxism: Grinding Your Teeth Is the Pits

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

Researchers have noticed that as incidence of anger increases so too has teeth grinding, known clinically as bruxism. That’s a problem because when people grind their teeth, especially when they’re sleeping, they can wear them down to nubs. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everybody, it's Josh and Chuck, your friends, and we are here to tell you about our upcoming book that's coming out this fall, the first ever Stuff You Should Know book, Chuck. That's right, what's the cool, super cool title

we came up with? It's Stuff You Should Know, colon, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right, and it's coming along so great. We're super excited, you guys. The illustrations are amazing, and there's the look of the book.

It's all just, it's exactly what we hoped it would be, and we cannot wait for you to get your hands on it. Yes, we can't, and you don't have to wait, actually. Well, you do have to wait, but you don't have to wait to order. You can go pre-order the book right now, everywhere you get books, and you will eventually get a special gift for pre-ordering,

which we're working on right now. That's right, so check it out soon, coming this fall. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadios, How Stuff Works. Here we go. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant speaking to me today through clenched teeth.

Jerry is off doing, who knows what, but she's here. So this is Stuff You Should Know. God's work. That's probably right. She's ministering to those in need. Yeah, we might as well call this episode, the peak into Chuck's private life.

You're gonna have a lot of personal stories about this? Yeah. Okay, well good, well, I'm looking forward to that. Yes, I'm a Bruxer. So I was just about to say, Chuck, you're a Bruxer, B-R-U-X-E-R, which is a great word in print at least, in Bruxer, it's all right out loud too, I guess. But I really don't think we can start this episode

any other way aside from how this How Stuff Works article kicked it off, okay? Okay, go ahead. So Chuck, when we're trying to figure out what Bruxism is, no, it's not a strange new religion or the latest exercise craze to come out of LA, it's the complicated medical term for the simple act of grinding your teeth.

LA, all those wacky exercise trends. I know, strange new religions with X's in the middle of them that make you give them all your money. Yeah, Bruxism, teeth grinding, I'm a tooth grinder. So you've had like serious dental work from that, right? Correct. And did you grind, cause we should probably tell everybody

there's really two big categories of grinding teeth. One is daytime grinding and the other is nighttime grinding and nighttime grinding is way more intense. So were you a nighttime grinder? I am currently both. Oh, you still are. Oh yeah. Okay, and then do you,

when you're a nighttime grinder doing your grinding thing, do you wake Emily up? No, she sleeps pretty soundly. Okay, cause from what I understand, it's not hard to actually wake the person sleeping in bed with you up from grinding your teeth that loudly. Like that's how loud it gets from how much pressure you're exerting on your poor teeth.

That's what I've heard. I've never recorded myself. I've thought about doing that. Yeah. You know, they have those apps I think that will trigger by sound or whatever to record. Sure, Bruxy. I need to get Bruxy going.

All right. But I am one of possibly 15% of Americans that are Bruxers, they say, roughly 15%. That's a lot of people. That was a surprising amount to me. I did not think it was gonna be that high. Yeah, and I don't really know if it's, I only know my experience and you know,

when I was reading through this, it was just triggering me all over the place because from grinding to gnashing to clenching to TMJ and TMP, like I've got it all. Do you really have TMD? Cause that sounds really bad. Yeah, it's just, I'm a mess. Yeah.

Have you ever heard of getting Botox for TMD? No. It's so, you know Botox, it's from botulin. Sure. And it paralyzes the nerves temporarily, but for a really long time, like months. You get it in your jaw and it relaxes the jaw muscles, actually.

Interesting. I wonder if while they're in there, I can get this cocoon under my eyeball, taken away. You have a cocoon under there? Yeah, it looks like a butterfly is about to sprout from this sleeping bag under my eye. I think it adds a lot of character. I don't think you should change anything like that.

No, no, no, I'm not worried about any cosmetic things. Good, good. You're looking good, man. Thank you. I can't even see you and I know you're looking good. Yeah. And we'll, you know, I'll chat about my experience throughout this, but I do have,

I had been fitted for a mouth guard, which I do not wear and I should. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, it's supposed to be kind of helpful, but I also saw that it can actually make you brux. I guess that'd be the verb, right? It makes you brux more sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I think the deal with the mouth guard is,

is it just provides a barrier between your teeth. So it doesn't stop you from grinding or clenching or anything like that, but it's no, there's no tooth on tooth, the sexiest contact, which is tooth on tooth. Right, it's almost like giving condoms to teenagers. It's been demonstrably, irrefutably proven that it makes them have sex when they otherwise wouldn't.

It's the same thing with a mouth guard. You probably wouldn't even grind your teeth, but you put a mouth guard on and you're gonna grind. You know, we get an alarming amount of emails from people who don't understand your, I don't even know what you call it. It's not sarcasm. Humor?

Sure. We can just throw it under the humor label. That hurt. Well, no, I mean, when you say something and you're totally kidding, but you're just being deadpan about it, people buy it by that. Yeah. They catch on eventually, I think.

No, well, they don't and they think you're a monster. So let's get into this, okay? Because I didn't know much about teeth grinding. I do grind teeth, but not to a clinical degree. So I didn't know quite a lot of this, but I came across this article that was written by a NYU dental student named Jordan Moshkovich.

No, yeah, Moshkovich. I think I nailed it out of the park. Sounds like a dental student from NYU if I've ever done one. I just came across this paper. I don't remember how I searched it, but anyway, it had some really interesting stuff in there. And the way that possibly by now Dr. Moshkovich put it, that as we understand Bruxism,

it occurs, it's cyclical. So it starts out and it follows a distinct pattern and then it kind of crests, it intensifies and then it wanes, it goes away and then the cycle eventually starts up again. And so that these cycles can happen in clusters. So your actual attack of Bruxism might only last somewhere in the neighborhood

of like four to 15 seconds. I think that's on the low end, but when you have a bunch of them of these different attacks, these cyclical attacks in a cluster, it can add up to quite a bit over the course of your sleepy time. Yeah, I mean, if you're grinding for 15 seconds and then taking off six or eight seconds

and then grinding again, I don't know what the distinction is. You just take a little break. Yeah, your brain's like, this is too much even for me. Because to me, that's constantly grinding. Right, so no, apparently it does it, like there's an increase in it and then it gets really, really bad and then it stops

and then it starts to slowly, to build again. I think what makes it cyclical in building is that it's also associated with an increase in heart rate and brain waves. So you're grinding your teeth, your heart is going faster and your brain is working over time. And then I guess it all just kind of crests and goes away for a little while.

Yeah, and I don't think we said the, I mean, we'll talk about all the reasons, this can be pretty bad, but you're exerting a lot of force. Up to 200 pounds of pressure per square inch. And that is not like even when you're chewing something super tough or like saltwater taffy or something. It's like 10 times the force that you used to chew food.

Dude, saltwater taffy is so great. You're a big fan. I really am a big fan. And it's one of those things where as I've gotten older, I've realized that some of this like old time candy, like Nugget, just plain old Nugget. Oh, Nugget's great. Like it was perfected.

Like we've perfected candy in a lot of ways a long time ago and you overlook it now just because it's been around for so long in favor of like, you know, a Whatchamacallit or some kind of go-go candy bar today. But there, and there's nothing wrong with Whatchamacallit. This is probably my favorite modern candy bar, but saltwater taffy, Nugget, stuff like that. It's really, it's been around for this long

for a reason, I guess. Yeah, you love the candies that you can get for a nickel by reaching your hand into it. Well, you can't do that kind of thing anymore, but by reaching your hand into a big germ bucket. Right. It's full of discarded candies from children. Sure, but they're individually wrapped, so I'm safe.

You know, when little bit sweets used to love us, they used to send us that Nugget. That was good. I know. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, they're the people who introduced me to Nugget. Straight up Nugget. Yeah, it was one of those care packages of theirs.

They introduced us to Nugget and honeycomb candy. Yeah, why don't they like us anymore? I don't know. I'm gonna have to get in touch with Liz and be like, what's up? Yeah, hint, hint. Okay, so. We'll still plug them though.

Yeah, well, we just did. Yeah. So you were saying 200 pounds of pressure. I saw, and that's per square inch. I saw up to 250 pounds of pressure per square inch. That's about 10 to 40 times what you would exert normally when you're chewing. And as you can imagine, like,

your poor teeth can only take so much. Yeah. And it's not just the pressure. It's the pressure combined with the grinding motion, right? That can really wear down the old enamel. I saw something like 10 times faster than somebody who doesn't grind their teeth while they sleep.

Yeah, so I mean, that introduces yet another problem. So not only will it make your teeth, you know, wigglier and just, they could crack. They can fracture. Yeah. You can wear them down to stumps. You get rid of that enamel, like you said, and then you're, you know, just ready to get a cavity.

Plus your nerves can be exposed. Oh, God. Have you ever gotten a root canal? Shockingly, no. I have three fake teeth, but I've never had a root canal. They are not fun. Yeah, I still don't even quite know what it is, to be honest. So they go in and they actually remove the nerve

at the face of the tooth. Like, it's just, they take the nerve out so you don't have any sensation right there anymore, which is good because by the time you need a root canal, you don't want to ever feel anything ever of any kind. And I got one once by this guy over in Brookhaven and he apparently is a master at root canals because every dentist I've been to since then,

this was years ago, has commented on, like what an amazing root canal that guy did. Yeah. So you can tell years later. I guess so, yeah, because I still get comments on it whenever I go to a new dentist and they take x-rays, they're like, wow, that is a really great root canal. It's not like the guy in the grocery store parking lot

that fixes your dent when you shop. No, really. He doesn't do that good of a job. I think the words root canal, just the combination of those two words is probably a top tenor for just most loathed combinations of words. That moist.

Well, that's just one word. Oh, oh, combination of words. Moist anything? Yeah, moist underline. Moist thighs, how about that? That's pretty bad. They did a little survey with the Chicago Dental Society, which is a real swing and club

and they found 65% of those dentists said that they are hearing about jaw clenching being sort of an increasing thing. I don't know when this was written, but apparently it's Bruxism is on the rise as is stress. Right, that's what they're saying, that they correlate it to stress on adults and they think that it's basically as simple as that.

There's a lot of other things that can cause Bruxism as we'll see, but stress seems to be the number one driver of teeth grinding in grownups. And as stress increases in our modern whatchamacallit type world, Bruxism is increasing as well, which is sad, but at the same time,

it's also like, okay, well then there's real hope for this. It's not like you have some biological short circuit in your brain that you'd have to go get neurosurgery to correct or cure. Yeah, you're just riddled with anxiety. Right, exactly. And I don't think we've officially pointed out or maybe you did that grinding is that

back and forth motion and clenching is just sort of just locking your teeth together and as if you're biting on a irresistible saltwater taffy. Saltwater taffy. So with clenching too, that seems to be more associated with daytime Bruxism than nighttime Bruxism. True.

And the other thing about daytime Bruxism, so Bruxism is considered a para-functional habit is what it's called, like chewing on pencaps or biting your fingernails or something like that. It's like it doesn't serve a good purpose for, like you're not breathing or eating or drinking. So you're doing other stuff with your mouth

that makes it a para-functional habit. But the thing about it is during the daytime, it's unconscious whether you're doing nighttime Bruxism or daytime Bruxism, but in the day you can stop and be like, oh, I'm clenching my teeth and stop yourself from doing it. So it's involuntary, but it's also unconscious. When you're asleep,

you're probably not going to wake yourself up, so you're going full bore. Yeah, and you know, I try and catch myself during the day when I clench and I find it happens a lot. What I've started doing, I don't know if it was a conscious effort or not, but I've started widening my tongue between my teeth,

kind of, not at all times, but a lot of the time, if my mouth is shut, I have my tongue in between my teeth to prevent that. Like in the front or on the side? Kind of all over, man. Oh, so you're just kind of constantly moving it? No, I just, you know, you fatten that tongue out and it fits, are you doing it?

That's quite a talent. No, I can't do it, I'm impressed. Really, with your tongue? Look, oh yeah, I guess I can, I can. And I should point out too that, you know, the history of my fake teeth are well-chronical on the show and I've talked about why, but it's not just from grinding.

Like I've always bitten my fingernails and that pressure forward, you know, in the front of your teeth is no good. And I've got shallow roots and sort of a host of things that kind of led to those teeth not working out for me. Let me ask you this, were either of your parents Bruxers?

I don't know. And I just, I don't know, I don't care to ask this one. You're like, I don't want to bring it up. Like who cares? I mean, maybe I could, but it's not like that would satisfy me in any way. Well, the thing is, is they think that it's an inherited trait

because apparently your chances of Bruxing are way higher if your parents are Bruxers. But like, do I need one more thing to blame on my parents? Right, exactly. 49 years old? That's right. So just chalk it up to the fact that you're a young woman who smokes.

Right. That's where you got it from. Because women are three times more likely to Brux and smokers are five times more likely to Brux. Right, smokers, people who drink heavily and a lot of that they attribute to dehydration. Yeah. And here's the thing,

this one is what reveals the weirdness of all this to me. So your body becomes dehydrated for whatever reason. And when you're dehydrated, a whole cascade of stressors just kind of take place in your body, right? It can trigger allergies, it can trigger inflammation. It's just not a good jam for your body to be dehydrated. The thing is, is what your body does in response

is make you grind your teeth. Like they've shown like you grind your teeth more when you're dehydrated. But like I was saying, that raises the big basic question that I've never seen anybody answer. Like why, why would you grind your teeth? What kind of a weird physiological response

is that to things like stress, whether emotional stress or physical stress, it's a very bizarre thing for your body to be like, oh, cue the teeth grinding. Let's get rid of some of the stress. Well, I don't know. I mean, I think you could file all of the things I'm about to say under that same weird category of why,

but the same reason you might tap your foot when you're nervous, or the same reason you might clench your fist if you have anxiety. I think they're just your body's responses to anxiety. They come out in these little weird physical ticks. Yeah, I mean, and then that makes sense. But to me, there's still like,

you can still keep walking a back to, you know, why teeth grinding, why clenched fists? Like what do we get from it? The closest I've seen to an explanation is it's a stress reliever. Right, and I get that. But again, like maybe my question is, where along the way in our evolutionary history

did teeth grinding become the response rather than like blinking in an alternating sequence really fast, you know, like why teeth grinding? Because ultimately grinding your teeth produces more tension and more stress concentrated in your jaw. It doesn't get rid of it. It just basically concentrates it into one painful area.

Yeah, I mean, one might say that one reason is because it's a silent form of releasing that anxiety. It's something you can do in a business meeting. It's something you can do in church or wherever you might feel really stressed out. Sure. You can't do primal scream therapy in the middle of a tense meeting.

But I know what you mean. You're a man of science. You wanna know the pathways of satisfaction that are happening there, I think. Yes, because that is the pathway to my satisfaction, understanding. Should we take a break? Yes.

All right, I'm gonna go grind for 30 seconds and we'll be right back. ["Ghostbusters Theme Song"] ["Ghostbusters Theme Song"] On the podcast, hey dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the co-classic show, hey dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're gonna use hey dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS

because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. How you feeling now? Whew, that was great. So it was a stress reliever for you then. I'm not stressed right now. Well, except for everything in my life that's super stressful, always. Right.

Yeah. We got a lot going on. A lot going on. We have a book that we're working on. Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, has at times been stressful.

It has, but it also has been fun. Like I'm really proud of how it's coming together. No, it's great. It's fun. But it's, it's like, hey, you're all working from home now with a five year old. So you have half as much time and twice as much work. Right.

Enjoy it. Yeah. This will be a fun process. Yeah. But no, we're coming up on the, the finish line is in sight. Yeah, for sure. And it's been more fun lately for me, which is good.

Good. I'm glad. What's the book called? Oh, oh. Are we plugging in? We might as well. It's called stuff you should know, colon. You always make me say that part too.

An incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right. And you can pre-order now and you get a little pre-order gift. And if you have questions about whether or not you get a pre-order gift with the audio book or whether, where you can get a signed edition, we're trying to get answers to that stuff. We're new at this.

Yeah, we're brand new. Yeah. We're green. We're green authors. Yes. Okay, so we were talking about some of the things that cause Bruxism that they've definitely shown. And again, no one has ever explained why Bruxism,

just how Bruxism, I guess. Yeah, like any kind of sleep disturbance can do it. I mean, there's, you know, we already talked about anxiety and stress. That's sort of, that seems to be the go-to for doctors, but any kind of sleep disturbance if you are on some weird bed in a hotel that is uncomfortable to you,

that might cause you to clench up during your sleep. Weird things like that. Yeah, if your bite doesn't form symmetrically, I guess is the word. That's me too. You actually, so that's called malocclusion. Yeah. And there's all sorts of stuff.

I didn't realize this, but there's all sorts of stuff to correct it, including shortening your jaw, which I'm like, okay, we don't have hover cars, but we have surgery that can shorten somebody's jaw. I'm impressed, right? Did you get that done? No, I considered having surgery at one point

where they break your jaw and realign it and then wire it shut. Okay. But there was never a great time to do it because I have a job where I run my mouth for a living. And it just, I don't know, it got to the point where I got to a certain age where I was like, you know what,

I just don't think I want that surgery. I'll live with my misaligned jaw and my TMJ and my TMD. Man, I hope you get the last part worked out. Thanks. So maybe it'll just magically clear up when we're not podcasting any longer. Well, you never know.

So I remember you talking about getting a surgery and that kind of jogged my memory. I didn't know you ever got it, but yeah, you probably couldn't wire your jaw shut. I was just clenching just then. You'd say, you go, should we talk about work? Yeah, it would be kind of weird. Now people don't want to hear that

for like six to eight weeks or whatever it is. Right. Man, the soup though. Yeah, it probably dropped some good weight, drink it to a straw. Yeah. But I mean, there's some good soup out there. You also grinded a cheeseburger.

Yeah, you could into soup. God. So I saw another thing thanks to presumably Dr. Moshkovich's article that they have connected teeth grinding to parasitic worm infections. Oh, really? Yeah. And I was like, that doesn't sound right at all.

I went and looked and yeah, there's a definite, like a bunch of papers dating back to the 70s where they're like, yeah, seems like if you have pinworms or hookworms, they directly cause teeth grinding. Weird. I know that certain psychiatric medicines and antidepressants and stuff could cause it.

That's one of the side effects sometimes. Could be comorbid with sleep apnea. Yeah. Which have had people write in and say, hey Chuck, check about sleep apnea because you have dreams about breathing water. That doesn't sound fun. No, I don't think I have sleep apnea though.

And maybe I'll get tested for that one day too. Yeah. One other thing though about parasitic worms is it actually correlates to something else that's mentioned in this article, which is allergies can kick it off. And remember, they think that parasitic worms has to do with either an increase in allergies

or a decrease in allergies or something, but they think that it's tied with allergies. So that would explain why it kicks off teeth grinding. Yeah. And I don't think we've said that you may not even realize that you're a Bruxer. Right. I do because of my history,

but I think a lot of people don't even realize they're gnashing their teeth in the night. You may wake up with a sore jaw and wonder what was going on. Think you might've slept on your face funny or something. Right. But a dentist can help diagnose that for sure if you go in and say, hey, something's going on here.

Yeah, yeah. Dr. Moshkovitz. Yeah, if you live alone or you're not grinding your teeth enough to wake up your partner, yeah, there's gonna be like little signs or whatever, but if you don't start paying attention to it, you might not notice it unless it's a bad case. If it's a bad case, you're gonna notice

because your teeth are starting to crack and chip and wear down. And even if you don't notice it, your dentist is gonna be like, I think you grind your teeth and that might be the first person to tip you off. Yeah, swollen gums, that could also be a little tip. You know, mine sort of happened all at once with the jaw. Like I've always had a bad bite

and two rounds of braces did not cure it. Oh man. So I've got sort of a, it's not quite an underbite, but you know, my bottom teeth and my top teeth are aligned instead of having an overbite. Right. And I remember distinctly when I started having these problems like 10 or 12 years ago, and I would tell Emily,

I said it feels like my lower jaw is from someone else's body all of a sudden. Huh. Like it just doesn't fit anymore. And that's the easiest way I could describe it. And it just kind of happened like suddenly, or you noticed it like in a short time? Started noticing it over a shortish span,

10 or 12 years ago. I remember one time I was singing in the band for band night one time and I had my mouth open singing like, you know, if I might say so, pretty powerfully. And something popped like I felt something almost like come unhinged and it got worse after that. So I don't know what that was all about. Was that during your famous cover of Ave Maria?

Yes, it was. Oh, holy night. We've interchanged those for our closer. Nice. Yeah. So another sign that you might have Bruxism is if you wake up and you, like the inside of your cheeks hurt because they've been rubbed raw from the,

getting caught up in the Bruxing. Yeah, if you're a side sleeper for sure. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's when it'll be particularly bad. You might also wake up with bite marks from it, you know? Not like you can see it, but you can definitely feel those. I went through a little period where I was biting, like where my canines are, you know,

I have like vampire canines and I don't know. It was almost like what you were just describing, like all of a sudden my bite or my jaw or something just changed and for like a month or two, I was biting this one part of my lip in the lower right corner and it was happening a lot and then finally it went away. No idea what happened, but I'm just glad it cleared up.

Yeah, I'm a side sleeper, sort of side slash chest sleeper and I will tuck a pillow up under my arm and face as well as the one I'm laying on with my head. And I think that has contributed to sort of misaligning my jaw and I looked online and sure enough, there are TMJ pillows, I think to help thwart that. Have you seen like some of the, I think Casper makes one,

there's one by Avocado, they're basically like anti-snoring pillows. I don't know. It lifts your head up so that your head's not going downward which helps you, like keeps your airway from being obstructed and hence snoring less. It actually works really well. I'm a bit of a snorer and they've cured it.

Don't I know it? I know you do, it's more like the Three Stooges. Since we're on the pillow front too, the other thing that I do is I sleep with my arm kind of under my head and under my pillow. Like I never know what to do with my arms as a side sleeper and that is, sometimes I wake up and my arm will be numb from just being in a weird position

but they have these pillows now that lift you up a little bit and have a little hatch there where your arm fits through. What? I haven't gotten one of those yet, but I'm looking into it. Wow. It's amazing the sleep product industry and I'm not talking about mattresses

is just ridiculously dense. Sure, dense like memory foam. Yeah, I love a good memory foam. So talking about, you're talking about TMJ and TMD. From what I saw, TMJ is the name of the joint and TMD is the name of the disorder of the stuff hanging around that joint. Is that correct?

Well, I've always heard it called a TMJ disorder. They may have just shortened that to TMD. Okay, yeah, I've always heard TMJ too. I haven't even heard it called TMJ disorder, just TMJ. But from what I can tell is everybody's been getting it wrong all these years that TMJ is the joint, not the disorder. Yeah, like if you say I have TMJ,

they're like, yeah, everyone's got a temporomandibular joint, jerk. Big whoop. But yeah, TMJ disorder, I think it's just become one of those things, it's shorthand, but yeah, I think TMD is inflammation of that joint. And that can affect kind of your whole face.

It can spread around to the other muscle and tissue, pain, swelling. We talk about swelling a lot, inflammation, swelling. That's sort of the key to good health is keeping that down. That seems to be like what science is starting to figure out for sure. It's all about inflammation, isn't it?

It seems like it. There's also clicking and popping that comes along with it too, which is not fun either. Not necessarily because it hurts, it's just distressing psychologically. You get worried like, oh man, is this next time is my jaw just gonna stay open? Yeah.

Because isn't lock jaw like a potential outcome of TMD? I don't know. I don't know anything about lock jaw, is that? Maybe it's like a flea circus, it's just one of those things that was made up, but everybody started to think it was. I thought lock jaw came around because tetanus or whatever.

Oh yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. It's like an infection. I forgot about that. And I think it's just, it's not your jaw locking up, it's just a weird name for it. Oh, I thought like your jaw like stayed open. Well, I think it can cause muscle contractions in your jaw, so maybe that is where the name comes from.

But I think it's from like, and I'm speaking out of my butt right now, but I think it's from like a bacterial infection and this is why you get tetanus shots. Yes, but that's weird that it would focus on your jaw muscles, you know? Amen, human body. It's pretty specific.

It's a mystery. It is a mystery. You wanna take a second break and then come back and talk about kids and getting rid of this stuff too? Yes. Okay, everyone, we'll be right back. We'll be right back.

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper

because you'll wanna be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS

because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast

or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, so everybody knows adults are super angry, not to be looked squarely in the eye, easily set off, that kind of stuff. And that explains teeth grinding in adults mostly. That and MDMA. With kids, it's a totally different story depending on the age and actually kids tend to grind their teeth almost as a matter of course.

They found that 50% of babies grind their teeth, but they do it typically when they're teething, which makes a lot more sense. Although grinding like your gums as the teeth are just breaking through is, whoa. Like it's like nails down a chalkboard to me, like just that same sensation. Really, just thinking about that, yeah.

Yeah, like moist. I mean, I got to say there is something very creepy about a baby locking down on your pinky before the teeth are in, but those teeth are right behind that gum skin. Right, it's very weird. Yeah, it's very creepy. It's nothing cute about it.

If you're a baby, you might also grind your teeth because your top and bottoms aren't aligned as of yet. Or like allergies, like you were talking about, if they're congested, the same with adults, it could be a sign of allergies or something. Yeah, again, allergies produce inflammation, which produces teeth grinding, which is the key to the existence of life

in the universe, I think. If you're a little older and you're not like a toddler, then it may be stress. It may be just that kid anxiety, which is super sad. Yeah, you might have trouble at school or if your family just moved or something like that, it might produce teeth grinding. It might also make you eat entire 10 packs of Twix

in one sitting after school. One of the two outcomes. Yeah. Not speaking from experience or anything? Just speaking in general. By the time, I think they say not to worry about it too much if your kid is grinding their teeth before they're seven or eight years old.

Yeah. Between seven and eight and 12 is usually when it'll go away. Once they get those big weird looking adult teeth that are still in that kid's head. Yeah, and a big old attitude to accompany it. Yeah, no kidding. But if your kid is like over seven or eight years old and they're still grinding their teeth,

you might wanna go see a dentist. And they might say, go see a therapist. Yeah, why not? Frank, I mean, or whatever their name might be. That's right, Frank the chair therapist. Sure, so because it's so prevalent and because it clears up on its own, you're not gonna treat your kid's Bruxism like you were saying.

If it is pretty bad though, your doctor might be like, let's get a mouth guard and the mouth guard might help. Probably will help, it won't keep them from doing it. But one of the other things that I saw, like if your baby does grind his or her teeth, one of the problems it can have, which is probably why you would wanna treat it, is that it can keep them awake at night,

which makes them cranky during the day. Right. So I could see wanting to treat teeth grinding, especially if it starts to become even remotely an issue. Although you don't have to. I could see treating it if it starts affecting my quality of daytime life. Exactly, but this article is so adorable.

It says, there's some things you can do if your young child is grinding his or her teeth. You can draw him a warm bath before bed or read him a story. That is just like, that's the most heartwarming treatment for any condition I've ever heard. Yeah, try reading a story to your kid before bed.

That's novel. Right. Don't try to read a novel though. Let me see. I think they also recommend, if you're an adult, something topical, like an analgesic, like tiger balm. Yeah.

Below the ears, like sort of right there outside the jaw. I don't know about that. I could give that a try, but I don't know if that'll keep me from grinding. Might just provide some relief. Have you tried warm baths for yourself before bed? Get those thighs moist. Yeah.

It says here to keep your tongue and the roof of your mouth. That's sort of a version of what I'm doing, but I don't see how the roof of your mouth helps so much. I think it cuts down on like the chance you might bite your tongue, but it's also keeping your mind focused on what your mouth is doing at any given time. That's what I would guess.

And of course, like there's a lot that you could do as far as like just relaxing is concerned, like meditation helps with absolutely everything. Not drinking as much, cutting down on caffeine, not smoking, all those things are linked to it. Not chewing gum. So basically, you know how I think I've said recently where if you have like a sleep disorder,

that like your bed, who is I telling this to? Do you remember? I don't remember either, but that your bed should be just for sleeping. Go to bed to sleep, like no TV, no reading, no nothing. And then, you know, over the course of time, you'll train yourself to associate bed with sleep and you'll just be able to sleep better.

The same thing goes with these other para functional habits, like chewing on pen caps, chewing gum, chewing your fingernails. Like you have to make sure you're not doing those because your mouth is just for eating and drinking and talking and breathing. And that's it, not for chewing or grinding your teeth. And you can kind of train yourself.

And that really kind of gets to the heart of this whole thing that it's an unconscious habit that your body has said, this is what we're going with for stress relief. So you're clearly stressed out, but you've developed a habit and you need to break the habit. And there's some other techniques that seem to work fairly well that are aimed at breaking this habit of grinding your teeth.

Yeah, I mean, I chewed, I've always bitten my nails and I used to massacre pins and pencils in school when I was like elementary school and high school. I don't do that anymore because I literally stopped myself from doing it because I know how bad that is for my teeth. But, you know, that's when I was a kid. I didn't have the smoothest childhood and home life.

So maybe that was that stuff coming out. I don't know. I wasn't stressed about like work and adult relationships and stuff. I guess, you know, maybe I always just had anxiety and never dealt with in a healthy way. I tend to think puberty is a pretty stressful event too. So going through that will make you go through

a few pain caps, you know? Yeah, what's happening down there, Doc? It's stressing me out. My thighs are all moist. Oh no. So grind care, this thing I thought was amazing. I looked it up and I'm like, here you go. This is what cures teeth grinding.

Yeah, I went to buy one today, but I don't live in Germany, Denmark or Sweden. That's the only place you can get them still. That's what it said on the website. Huh, so grind care is a headband. They describe as a headband, but really it's these little modules that you put on either side of your temple basically.

And it's a monitor that sensors whether you are about to clench your jaw or not, or grind your teeth. And it shoots out a little pulse of electricity. It says, no, I don't think so. And it relaxes your jaw. I mean, as soon as I saw this, it was like, that's it. That's the answer.

Man, well, hey, like listeners in Denmark, Germany, you're aware? Send me one of these things, Sweden. Yeah, hook choke up. Yeah, it's amazing that it's not available outside those three countries. It really is, because it sounds like it works. They say that it reduces grinding by 50%

in the first three weeks, 80% between week six and eight. Yeah, I mean, I was sold. Maybe I can get my hands on one through the dark web. We found out, so we had this portrait made of Momo and the artist was featured in Harper's Bazaar Netherlands. And she had the portrait of Momo in the magazine. Oh, that's fun.

So yeah, but try to get your hands on a Harper's Bazaar Netherlands edition. You can't do it. I bet you could get one. Yumi was like, you know what? I'll bet the stuff you should know, Army could help. So she went on to the SYSK Facebook Army page and was like, just asked for help

and got a bunch of people who offered, which is super nice. I am happy to report. I believe we're getting a few copies. That is fantastic. Yeah, it was either that or flying to the Netherlands in the middle of a pandemic. Well, in any other time,

that might be a fun little adventure. It could be. But it was cool because everybody was just so happy to help too, you know? Yeah. We have the best listeners on the planet. I drove to Vegas one time with my friend, you know, Johnny Pindell to get a T-shirt

and drove back. Wow, what was the T-shirt? If I remember correctly, Johnny wanted a... My heart, New York. No, I think it was a... Was it a Krispy Kreme Vegas or some sort of larger brand with the Vegas specificity? Hard Rock Cafe, last one?

I don't think it was. And this was, you know, pre, like you could buy anything on the internet at all times. Right. So he's like, hey, you want to drive to Vegas? I want to get this shirt. And I was like, sure, let's do it. Wow, how long did it take you?

I mean, it's from LA, it's not far. Oh, oh, I was thinking from Atlanta. Oh, good Lord, no. It's like, wow, it must have been one hell of a shirt. Even from LA, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, it's a common route. Did you guys engage in a huge drug collection spree first? Oh, sure.

And start seeing bats. And then blew it all on Amyl Nitrate and Blackjack. That's right. There was one other thing we should mention though. There is a, apparently something you can put in your mouth that's got a nasty tasting liquid. I guess it's like a gel pack or something that you put between your teeth

and when you bite into it, when you're asleep, that thing is punctured and that you get that nastiness in your mouth. But I don't know that that would work on me because I used to paint my fingernails with deterrent when I was in elementary school. My mom would. What did it taste like?

It was just super bitter. Like the most bitter thing you could ever imagine. And I just chewed right through it. That's grody. Didn't stop me. This was, so from what I could tell, it was just a patent somebody has. It looks like a retainer,

but then in the back where the molars are, there's packets and they suggested sea water or hot sauce. And I was like, geez, that seems like it will wake you up. Apparently that's the point. Like, I guess you just annoy yourself into not grinding your teeth any longer because you just want to get some sleep. So what do you think Chuck did this cure you?

Nah, what's it gonna take? I don't know. I'm not having that surgery. And I don't like where in the mouth guard. I've worn, I wear the mouth guard sometimes when I know that I'm no for sure I'm going through a particularly stressful period. But it's just, it's not comfortable, you know?

No one wants to wear those things. I might as well not, yeah. Well, if you are listening to us in Germany, Denmark or Sweden, hit Chuck up so he can get a grind care from you. That's right. And in the meantime, if you want to know more about teeth grinding,

go check out the article written by Jordan Moshkovich called, I can't remember what it's called, but anyway, just look up Jordan Moshkovich. I don't think there's more than one of them running around. And there's other stuff all over the internet too. And since I said that, it's time for Listener Mail. By the way, I bet you there are at least 10 dentists

in New York City named Dr. Jordan Moshkovich. You think so? Sure. Okay. Just sounds like a dental name. You know, my first dentist name was Dr. Tuggle. That is a really great name in general. Yeah.

Dr. Tuggle, that's a great name for like a cat too. Yeah, Dr. Tuggle. Dr. Tuggle. One time I was in the airport, this is when we had our dog Buckley and we called him Buckles a lot and I was in the airport and Delta was paging someone at the little,

where you check in there and they said, paging Mr. Buckles, Mr. Buckles, can you come to the desk? That's amazing. It just killed me. I immediately called him and I was like, they're paging Mr. Buckles. All right, I'm going to call this something that we got wrong, sort of you got wrong,

on the heroin podcast. And we heard from enough people about this that I thought it bore an email or a read. Hey guys, this is a former opiate addict now almost 10 years clean with lots of education and experience in this area. I'd like to gently suggest that a correction be noted on your recent very good episode on heroin.

In discussing the withdrawal detox period, Josh stated that if an addict were to get through that miserable week of suffering, then he or she would be essentially over the addiction. While it's true the acute phase of heroin withdrawal last about a week, addiction is a disorder far more complex and insidious in long term than physical dependency,

which is only one aspect that a week's worth of detox can cure. A secondary kind of withdrawal can occur known as post-acute withdrawal syndrome, pause, in which the brain has to sort of recalibrate and heal from protracted dopamine imbalances. Pause can trigger episodes of anxiety and profound depression,

which can even lead a recovering addict right back into active addiction. Moreover, addiction rarely happens in a vacuum. Most addicts need long-term support therapy and coaching. You weren't suggesting that's not the case, by the way. Right. To redevelop or develop coping skills that will enable him or her to live a drug-free life.

But recovery from addiction is absolutely achievable. It's not short or as simple as a few days of nausea, aches, and diarrhea. Thanks for all you do. That is from Jason in San Antonio. Nice, thanks a lot, Jason. Absolutely Chuck, thank you for bailing me out on that. That's not what I meant,

but I definitely should have been a lot clearer than I was. Well, we should have talked about pause, because that's a big deal. We heard from a bunch of people talking about pause. But boy, we heard from a lot of people that were current and former addicts. It was more so than our other drug podcasts. It was really pretty enlightening

and heartening and disheartening all at once. Yeah, I mean, it really kind of got across just how widespread the opioid crisis is, you know? For sure. Well, thanks to everybody who wrote in and hang in there to everybody who's still struggling with addiction of any kind. And thanks a lot, Jason, from Santa Fe or San Antone.

San Antone. If you want to get in touch with us like Jason did, you can send us an email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuffpodcast.iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

visit the iHeartRadio app. Couple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.