About 50 per cent of her adult patients, roughly one in every two, show varying degrees of teeth grinding.
Over time, bruxism wears down tooth structure and can affect both the teeth and the surrounding facial muscles.
Many adults only learn that they grind their teeth because someone else tells them. “You were making that sound again.” A rough scraping, like stone grinding against stone, sometimes loud enough to wake the person beside you. And yet the grinder sleeps through it.
So how does it happen? Dr Serah Wanza, a dentist and founder of Versatile Dental Solutions in Nairobi, explains that bruxism (teeth grinding) occurs when the teeth press together, the jaw shifts, and the masseter muscles, the ones we use to chew food, work involuntarily and rhythmically.
