Headache Relief and Your Mouth

Oh what a headache a headache can be! The pain can be so excruciating it can make you dizzy. It can be so bad that even your headache medication doesn't help. You may even feel disabled and unable to work.

If you suffer from debilitating headaches, you may want to visit your dentist. Ask your dentist for a tiny new device a small piece of plastic that is custom fitted over your two front teeth to stop you from clenching and grinding your teeth and jaws. For many patients this simple device works when other treatments have failed greatly reducing the intensity and frequency of their headaches. If you're a headache sufferer, it can literally change the quality of your life.

This little plastic device is called an NTItss appliance. NTI-tss stands for nocioceptive trigeminal inhibition tension suppression system. Those are a lot of fancy words that not only make up the name of the device, but describe what the NTI does as well. In simple terms, the NTI reduces the muscular triggering component of migraines and chronic headaches. By preventing the back molar and canine teeth from touching each other, the NTI reduces the neuromuscular contractions in the head, neck and jaw (imagine biting down on a pencil with your two front teeth so the back teeth can't touch). Intense clenching causes fibers in the muscles to get irritated. With the NTI this is avoided and the occurrence and severity of recurring headache pain is severely reduced.

Medications for the prevention of migraine pain have been disappointing. Yet the NTI appliance has proven to be surprisingly effective, and it is simple. In a recent clinical trial, 82% of headache and migraine sufferers experienced a 77% average reduction in migraines using the NTI appliance, without any side effects, use of drugs or surgery. Amazing that something so small can do such a big job.

Use of the device is simple it is worn over only your two front teeth at night. This prevents your jaw muscles from contracting during sleep, since it has been shown that chronic headache sufferers contract their temporal muscles (i.e. clench their teeth) during their sleep 14 times more intensely than normal. A discrete daytime version is also available for more serious sufferers and those who clench their teeth during the day.

The NTI can be made by a qualified dentist right in his/her office. It involves no surgery, and is more effective and has no risk of side effects compared to pharmaceutical migraine treatments.

So if you want to stop suffering from tension and migraine headaches, consider an NTI appliance. Instead of putting a pill in your mouth, put a device on your teeth. For more information speak to your dentist.