Bill HangDental Practitioner, Lecturer at OrthO2Health

William M Hang DDS, MSD - The Case Against Having Teeth In Contact More Than 8 Hours

16 Jul 2013 · 2 min

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1:56

In this lecture Dr. William M. (Bill) Hang presents a series of clinical cases illustrating the detrimental effects of prolonged tooth contact—specifically, chronic clenching or bruxism that exceeds eight hours per day. He describes patients who suffered decades‑long headaches, severe masseter pain, temporomandibular joint disc displacement, maxillary remodeling (the upper jaw rotating forward and the chin projecting), and even sleep‑apnea symptoms. The narrative follows the progression from initial presentation, through the pathophysiological mechanisms (continuous force driving the maxilla downward and forward), to the outcomes after surgical intervention, which often include resolution of headaches, normalization of airway patency, and overall improvement in quality of life. Dr. Hang emphasizes the need for clinicians to recognize the signs of excessive tooth contact, monitor patients closely, and intervene before irreversible skeletal changes occur.

Chapters

So here's a gal from— that I treated from Florida who had 40 years of headaches. The point is, if you clench and clench and clench and clench and clench, it's the opposite of Michael Phelps. You literally can drive your maxilla up underneath your nose, and you'll show less and less tooth. These are not so— these are much rarer than the long face. But they are there nevertheless. And the pain pattern that they present with is truly awful, because the masseters are on fire, the discs are usually displaced and all. So that was her, and that's not a picture of happiness. I get up in the morning with a splitting headache. By the time I get in the hot tub with my husband at the end of the day, it's almost unbearable. After her surgery, everything changed for her. No more sleep apnea, and her airway was fine, and life was good. Here's a girl that I saw early on in my practice here, and here later on. She'd had 4 teeth taken out. The teeth had fallen together. She never had any ortho. She was an intense clencher. I never treated her, but she came back a few years later. And this is the kind of change which had occurred, and I think it was about 7 or 8 years from this picture to here. But she's clenching and clenching and clenching, and what goes on is this chin is coming forward because she's literally impacting the whole maxilla and rotating it forward. The distance between here and here is going to get smaller and smaller. You're going to see this not as often, but you gotta be aware of it. So, Prophyte would say, here's someone who's got their teeth in contact more than 8 hours a day, and they're not just in contact, they're in intense contact.