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How an NTI-tss works

This is a simple demonstration of the efficacy of the NTI-tss device.
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A) Begin by gently biting on the moon portion of your fingernail, using
your central incisors. Only be forceful enough to create slight
discomfort.
B) Now attempt to use the same
amount of force, but this time bite with a canine tooth on the
same spot of your fingernail as you did with the central incisors.
What happens? Biting with the canine tooth is suddenly more
painful than with the incisors... Why?
The incisor teeth are intended to not only incise food, but to be
"hardness monitors" of what you're biting into. They are under your
control and tell you if something will be to hard to chew.
The canine teeth are designed for grasping and pressing into what it is
that you're trying to hold on to (carnivores specifically use the canine
teeth for this purpose). The intensity of muscular activity created once
the canine teeth have been engaged is under less voluntary control. In
fact, the message to the brain is: "We've opened our mouth to
grab something and have caught it...hold on!" The contacting
of canine teeth encourages jaw clenching!
Dentistry's attempt at dealing with parafunctional jaw muscle activity
(the most destructive of which is jaw clenching) has been to provide
alterations of the biting surfaces of the teeth.
1) A full coverage splint, usually a thickness which mimics the
intended space between the teeth when the jaw musculature is supposed to
be at rest, provides both canine and posterior teeth contact, thereby
allowing for perpetuation of parafunctional (nighttime clenching) muscular
activity.
2) By increasing the thickness of the splint, clenching
intensity may be altered, depending on the amount of pressure applied to
particular teeth. If contacts are "heavier" in the molar region,
clenching intensity can be suppressed slightly. If contacting is
prevalent in the canine region, clenching is reflexive and perpetuates.
3) An anterior bite plane reduces parafunctional intensity of
the masseters (the muscles on the sides of your jaw, primarily involved in
chewing, not clenching), and to a degree, the lateral
pterygoids (the tiny muscles at your jaw joints that open your jaw),
but still provides canine contact for temporalis clenching.
A)
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B) |

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