Headaches affect millions of Americans and a new resource ihateheadaches.org has now come to Salt Lake City to help patients improve the quality of their lives and their loved ones. Most headaches are caused directly or indirectly by disturbances in the Trigeminal Nerve. The Trigeminal of Fifth Cranial Nerve is also known as the dentists nerve is a trigger or exacerbating factor in almost all headaches.
Neuromuscular Dentistry uses sophisticated measurement tools to assist the dentist in evaluating and correcting physiologic function of the masticatory systems health. The masticatory system is not just the mouth and teeth but includes the tongue, swallowing and breathing mechanisms that affect not just the mouth but the sinuses, the neck, the blood flow to the brain, the middle ear and other important structures.
An excellent description of Neuromuscular Dentistry that was originally published by the Ameircan Equilibration Society can be found in Sleep and Health Journal at http://www.sleepandhealth.com/
TMJ disorders are often called "The Great Imposter" because they so often mimic other disorders. Physicians frequently know little about TMJ disorders even though they were originally first described by a St Louis Physician Dr Costen. Dr Costen was an Otolaryngologist and he looked initially at patients with dentures and described symptoms such as ear pain, ear stuffiness, sinus pain and headaches that could be corrected by correcting the dentures. Medical literature calls these disorders Costen's Syndrome. The problems associated with TMJ disorders are termed repetitive strain disorders where the joints, nerves, muscles and blood vessels create problem because they are misused thousands of time a day due to incorrect neuromuscular positioning of the jaw and incorrect meeting of the teeth.
The NHLBI, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the NIH considers Sleep Apnea to be a TMJ disorder. See the report "Cardiovascular and Sleep Related Consequences of Temporomandibular Disorders" at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/
TMJ disorders can cause migraines, tension-type headaches, sinus headaches, ear pain, stuffy ears, hearing problems, dizziness, TM Joint pain, jaw clicking, jaw pain, facial pain, retrorbital headaches, occipital headaches, cervical pain and dysfunction and many other problems. An excellent article for all patients with migraines, chronic daily headaches or TMJ problems (TMD) is available in Sleep and Health Journal at http://www.sleepandhealth.com/
The trigeminal nerve or fifth cranial nerve is one of 12 cranial nerves and is responsible for almost half of all input into the brain. As a cranial nerve it is actually a brain cell or part of the brain itself. The entire spinal cord only accounts for about 20% of the input to the brain.
The trigeminal nerve goes to the teeth, jaw muscles, jaw joints, sinus linings, periodontal ligaments, the anterior 2/3 of the tongue, the tensor of the ear drum and the muscle that opens and closes the eustachian tube. It also controls the blood flow to the anterior 2/3 of the brain through the meninges. This is why it is so frequrntly the cause of migraines.
This is good news for patients because Neuromuscular Dentistry allows correction of the masticatory input and this normalization can eliminate, relieve and/or prevent migraines as well as chronic daily headache, Episodic Tension-Type Headaches and facial pain.
Patients in Salt Lake City can contact Dr Myles Preble through the I HATE HEADACHES website. If you are ready to begin a journey to eliminate your headaches contact Dr Preble today.
