bruxism and trigger points

[Guest guest]

In the past my bruxism symptoms were generally a classic headache

usually starting in the afternoon (not in the morning like most

bruxers')... possibly with mild brain fog though it's hard to

discern that when you're feeling poorly due to a headache. I

concluded the cause to be bruxism by seeing the (variously postive

and negative) associations with serotonergic drug intake, NTI device

use, jaw joint clickiness, jaw muscle pain, etc.

This fall I started getting days of heavy brain fog (first in over a

year), usually with gross sludgy feelings local to the head, but

with no headache (which kind of threw me off). This crap slowed down

immensely once I stopped sleeping in a very cold room on a really

hard bed. But it didn't stop. I stopped all abx etc to make sure

they were not responsible. A shorter sleep period helps. The NTI

seems to help at times, but I used it last night and woke up with a

classic headache + fog.

Anyway, people have been writing about bruxism as a cause of

headache for at least 50 years:

Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol. 1959 Dec;68:1159-62. Links

Headaches caused by bruxism.MONICA WS.

PMID: 14423560 [PubMed - OLDMEDLINE for Pre1966]

But what have they come up with? Not a hell of a lot, as far as I

know.

I really admire the ingenuity of the NTI invented by Jim Boyd DDS,

though as I said I haven't found mine 100% effective. Boyd has

republished on his site some papers by him & collaborators, such as

this one where he states with a reference: " treatment outcome using

an traditional occlusal splint alone for patients with significant

myofascial pain is no better than placebo. "

http://www.drjimboyd.com/bruxism.htm.

So, assuming what he cited is a quality study, it would seem to

confirm what I yesterday stated as something I knew only as hearsay.

Other papers of Boyd's are here. (Whether or not he is a highly-

reliable reasoner and investigator, I am yet unacquainted with, but

he's outside the box for sure; as for the NTI I have seen at least

some dentists report high rates of success with it, and the way it

works is virtually a thing of beauty.):

http://www.drjimboyd.com/

I wonder if myofascial trigger points could be at the bottom of this

crap. All I know about myofascial trigger points is the following:

1. They're supposed to be some kinda clenchy bunch of myofascia,

enclosing nerves which are irritated by the clenchiness and yet seem

to probably perpetuate it - unless/until the trigger point is

disrupted by mechanical treatment (basically, stretching and

massage).

2. I dono if this is the same as a fibro " trigger point " or not.

Anyone know?

3. They have not been really well-recognized by orthodoxy, or at

least not highly emphasized -- whether that's for some good reason

or not, I have no idea.

4. When I'd had nasty pelvic pain for months, I finally found a D.O.

to check me for trigger points / etc according to the pathogenesis

developed at Stanford U by and Wise (both MDs), which has

been published on. The D.O. claimed he found a trigger point and

released it, and my pelvic pain was 99% cured within 5 days (it's

now been over 2 years I guess). I can still feel the rather robust

hypertonus in my pelvic musculature though (this is not necessarily

easy to detect; you can't really feel it until you learn to relax

the musculature sometimes).

5. It's claimed that the trigger point can cause refered pain at a

somewhat distant site.

So, given the bruxism I suspect I'm probably doing, I wonder if I'm

actually having a partial inflammo-and/or-infectional relapse, or if

I could possibly have just created some of these nasty self-

perpetuating trigger point things by sleeping cold in a hard bed

(doing so definitely did experience the mild tightness I sometimes

have around the hips). Since my pelvic muscles are still really

hypertonic, which seems like it might be one of the conditions

favoring trigger point formation, I wouldn't be surprised if I

developed another trigger point and resumed having pelvic pain at

some point in future years. Fortunately I would know what to do.