The present invention relates generally to intraoral devices and, more particularly, to an intraoral discluder for use in relieving tension headaches, common migraine headaches, and temporomandibular disorders.
Tension and muscle contraction headaches affect many people every day. The headaches are often recurring and, without effective treatment, can become very painful, restricting an individual's ability to think clearly and function effectively. The discomfort associated with tension and muscle contraction headaches is usually due to pain from strained and fatigued muscles of the head. The majority of the muscles of the human head are not sufficiently strong to elicit the type of pain and discomfort associated with tension and muscle contraction headaches. That is not the case with the temporalis muscle, however, which is located on the side of the skull and extends from just behind the eye to just behind the ear, and which is an extremely powerful muscle that functions to close or elevate the jaw.
Under normal circumstances, the temporalis muscle should not exert a large static force by contracting isometrically, except possibly during normal chewing. Inappropriate isometric contraction of the temporalis muscle is commonly known as “clenching” and is clinically known as myofascial dysfunction. The intensity of the myofascial dysfunction varies according to the mandible's anterior/posterior position, with the intensity increasing as the mandible's position moves posteriorly. Unfortunately, myofascial dysfunction is particularly difficult to detect or diagnose, because the act of clenching is a relatively motionless act that is commonly done while a person is concentrating on another topic, or while sleeping.
As the muscular contraction condition of “clenching” continues, the muscle becomes fatigued and susceptible to spasm and cramping. The pain from spasming and cramping temporalis fibers is severe and is usually diagnosed as a common migraine. Headache sufferers who seek the assistance of a physician typically are treated with muscle relaxants, analgesics, and/or physical therapy for the muscle fatigue. However, medications and physical therapy require continual treatment, and they treat only the symptoms of the underlying problem, not the source of the problem itself.
Headache sufferers who seek the assistance of a dentist typically are diagnosed as having a temporomandibular disorder and are treated with an intraoral “jaw-positioning” appliance. Unfortunately, the intraoral appliances provided by dentists frequently are not entirely effective, because they only approximate the relative positions of the upper and lower teeth with respect to each other, allowing clenching to continue with minimal mandibular movement. Further, these intraoral appliances ordinarily cannot be used by patients who have malocclusions, protrusions or retrusions of the mandible, or other irregular teeth or mandibular orientations. Typically, the intraoral appliance must also be fabricated by a dentist at a prohibitive cost to a majority of individuals who suffer from tension headaches and common migraine headaches. Lastly, most intraoral jaw-positioning appliances and other types of semi-custom intraoral discluders can be used only on the upper teeth. However, in some circumstances, use of the appliance on the upper teeth is impossible due to malocclusions and irregular orientation of the teeth.
One intraoral appliance that avoids the drawbacks mentioned immediately above is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,150 to Boyd, Sr. That appliance includes a trough sized and configured to be releasably retained by a wearer's maxillary incisors and further includes a dome projecting posteriorly from the trough and defining a surface to be contacted by at least one opposing incisor. When the appliance is properly positioned in the wearer's mouth, the temporalis muscles are rendered ineffective, thus relieving tension headaches, common migraine headaches, and temporomandibular disorders. However, it is believed that this appliance can sometimes still allow limited clenching of the temporalis muscle, particularly when the mandible is located in its furthest posterior position.
It should be apparent from the foregoing discussion, that there remains a need for an even more effective intraoral discluder configured to be placed on either the upper teeth or the lower teeth, to prevent contact of the upper and lower teeth in all mandibular movements and to further inhibit undesired isometric contraction of the temporalis muscle. The present invention satisfies this need.