clenching jaw while asleep

[yellowflowers]

I've been having midday naps as so very tired (17 weeks pg now - tiredness started in extreme about 2 weeks ago - midwife says blood pressure and iron level fine).

I wake from them with very sore jaw - must be clenching jaw or grinding teeth during nap. Have stuffy nose so maybe this contributes. But it's not a problem when I sleep at night - just when I have my 90 min nap in day.

Anyone else? Any solutions?

[angels1]

I've had this in the past with stress. Nothing helped me aside from a bite guard from the dentist, whichb you wear when you sleep to stop to clenching your jaw. They don't do it on the NHS (to my knowledge) and I had to pay about £65, but was worth the money to stop the headaches that it caused (for me anyway, but your may be different situation). I did first try the sports mouth guards you get from sports shops and set to your mouth by warming it up, but really wouldn't advise bothering - just couldn't keep it in and was so big and horrible - made me want to gag all the time.

Btw I had a painful jaw for a few days and looked it up and found sore jaw can be just from muscles etc relaxing in pregnancy...could be partially this, in which case all I could find to help was to do an excercise which involved sticking my tongue out for 10 mins to relax the muscles.

Hope that helps.

[PickleSarnie]

I am a regular teeth grinder and it got worse since being pregnant. Probably because of the disturbed sleep.

My old private dentist used to quote me £500 for a bite guard which I couldn't bring myself to pay. Even though I was ruining my teeth. When I got up duffed, I went to a new NHS dentist and I was quite surprised that a soft guard would normally cost £70 but it would be covered with my maternity exemption card. So I got to for free, its pretty comfortable and has stopped me ruining my teeth with grinding. I think I'm still clenching but at least my teeth and fillings are okay now.

[beancounting]

I had this problem a couple of years ago when I was particularly stressed - waking up with an aching jaw and a headache, after a while it got to the point where I was clenching my jaw during the day as well so had a semi-permanent headache.

My (NHS) dentist referred me to the dental hospital where they fitted a soft mouth guard thing to wear at night (I didn't have to pay anything) which helped (and is surprisingly comfortable to wear). I was still getting headaches during the day though and what finally got rid of them was Alexander technique lessons, which improved my posture and helped me to release the tension in my jaw and neck.

Going off on a slight tangent, I've carried on with the Alexander technique and think it's really helped with avoiding back problems during pregnancy!