Hi everyone. This is my first post and I thought I'd introduce myself.

So far I've only read a few posts and I've realized that my situation is not so bad compared to some others. This forum has helped me already.

My situation is - my husband keeps me awake. He is a snorer as am I but my snoring does not keep me awake.

My husband has a cleft palette. Therefore to our knowledge, the snoring cannot be rectified without major jaw surgery.  Which is not going to happen. His snoring has been a problem since the start of our relationship which started over 25 years ago.

His snoring is not a problem after I get to sleep as I am usually a very deep sleeper. In fact I have trouble waking up. My husband tried to wake me 4 times the other morning and eventually gave up. In the past, he has been known to push me out of bed. 

I've just had a break from writing this and read a thread here and it seems I'm not as bad as others, I do hear the alarm clock.

The other thing that keeps me awake is I seriously grind my teeth and I have done this since a kid. This means I now have to wear a mouth guard to bed.  If I don't, I wake up in the morning with not only less teeth mass but also sore gums and jaw. I have had two custom made mouth guards made in the past and these have lasted a total period of around 3 years. These mouthguards are I'm told supposed to last considerably longer than that. They are expensive and I now try to sleep with a sports mouthguards bought from the pharmacy.  These store bought mouthguards are huge and its almost impossible to get comfortable enough to be able to sleep at night.

Another problem is I tend to think about things a lot while trying to get to sleep. I've tried to wear myself out so I am exhausted when my head hits the pillow but this only works sometimes. I have also tried reading until my eyes get too sore, this also works sometimes but other times I get too interested in the book I'm reading. I've also tried relaxation exercises prior to trying to sleep, they don't work.

Anyone else here have similar problems? My dentist said at the last visit something about analyzing why I grind my teeth but he was saving that discussion for the next visit which I'm not in a hurry for. My last visit involved having one of my major chewing teeth pulled out because I broke it by grinding.

Hope I've put this post into the right spot and haven't upset or bored anyone, although may be boring some of you to sleep would be a good thing.

LGD

I wasn't aware my deep sleeping was related to the grinding, I thought it might have been something to do with my struggle to get to sleep.

What is TMJ?