Breakthrough
Dental Device May Mean
the End of Paralyzing Headaches
January 22, 2002 - Searing headaches,
missed work, cancelled social events - if you're a migraine sufferer, these are
all familiar scenarios. But for the nearly one-in-twelve adults in the United
States who suffer unbearable pain on a regular basis, there is hope where
conventional prescription medicines often fail. The Food and Drug Administration
has approved a new piece of equipment that may be the answer to more than 20
million prayers.
The device is called the NTI Tension
Suppression System (NTI) and for the millions of people who wake up with
migraines each day, it is generating amazing results. "One serious problem
migraine sufferers experience is severe contraction of the jaw muscles while
they sleep," explains leading Dentist and headache expert Dr. Chris Kammer,
"The NTI device is a small custom-fit plastic appliance that fits
comfortably over the two front teeth keeping the jaw slightly open during
slumber and resulting in a significant decrease in morning migraines."
While we sleep, we naturally and
subconsciously contract our temporalis muscles, the jaw muscles that entirely
cover the sides of our heads. Migraine victims typically contract these muscles
up to 14-times more intensely than non-sufferers causing severe head pain in the
morning. According to Dr. Kammer, however, the NTI device reduces the severity
of the contractions by nearly 70%.
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"We originally began using similar
appliances to help prevent TMJ headaches and other types of jaw problems,"
continues Dr. Kammer, who has been studying the relationship between teeth and
headaches for more than 15 years, "but when the NTI device was tested on
migraine victims, we found that four out of five of them experienced more than a
75% reduction in pain."
The use of the NTI device in reducing
migraine headaches is also a breakthrough because it produces no side effects.
"Many commonly prescribes medicines can result in ancillary problems and
still not prevent or cure many incidents of migraines," adds Dr. Kammer.
"Use of the NTI mouthpiece produced no additional pain or unpleasant side
effects. In fact, studies showed that it helped reduce migraine-related nausea
by close to 80%."
23 million people over the age of 12
suffer severe migraine headaches in the United States alone. This results in
sleeplessness and missed work costing businesses an estimated 17 billion dollars
in lost productivity.
Dr. Chris Kammer
