Intraoral orthosis for treatment of cervical muscle tension in migraine
This study explains the way dentists can contribute to treating migraine. Migraine studies in medical journals for
decades have proven that muscle spasms in the head and neck are one of the biggest causes of migraine pain. Dentists can treat migraine by changing the resting position of these muscle groups simply with a bite plate or palatial plate. This type of migraine and tension headache treatment often seems counter-intuitive to migraine patients, but it can very effective is muscle tension is playing a role in that particular migraine patient.
Muscle tension is easy for migraine sufferers to diagnose themselves. Migraine patients will often describe the muscle spasms and muscle tension that is part of their pain. Countless migraine studies have proven this over and over again. Sometimes the muscles are tender and migraine patients will get family members to massage them, or they are able to pinpoint muscle trigger points with is very useful from a treatment perspective.
The muscle tension component of migraine pain is one the biggest areas that dentists can play a role in migraine treatment. Migraine treatment centers should all have dentists join their team as this type of treatment is not harmful nor dangerous in any way. It also has no side effects and is often a very scuffle intervention. Dental bite plates or palatal plates should be tried before migraine surgery or migraine medication, especially in children.
These bite plates prevent teeth from clenching or the jaw from moving out of position, thereby causing severe pain in the muscles of the face.
In this study, migraine sufferers received a palatal plate and their quality of life of was measured before and after treatment. The results were very encouraging for migraine sufferers, and these results have been repeated in many headache studies throughout the migraine literature.
This study found that patients who used the palatal non-occluding splint had a better quality of life. The article also discusses the role of the head and neck muscles.
View the original migraine prevention study at this link: Craniomandibular muscles intraoral orthoses and migraine