Journal of Oral & Facial Pain and Headache, 04/1998

A variety of jaw and facial reflexes can be evoked by orofacial mechanical or electrical stimuli. Because of its possible diagnostic utility in the management of pain and dysfunction of the masticatory system, the exteroceptive suppression that can be evoked in the masseter and temporalis muscles has been particularly investigated. A review of the different studies emphasizes the crucial importance of the area stimulated and the type of stimulation used to evoke the reflex. More recent studies have applied the necessary standardization of stimulus intensity, clenching levels, recording procedures, and unbiased interpretation of the reflex components in muscle electromyographic (EMG) activity. Controversial results have been reported regarding the differences in these inhibitory (and excitatory) reflex responses between temporomandibular disorder or headache patients and controls. Even if the absence of a second inhibitory phase in the masseteric EMG activity of the patients is a frequent finding, its sensitivity and specificity as a diagnostic tool for myogenous pain or bruxism remain to be tested. Controlled studies on the duration of the second exteroceptive suppression period in tension-type headache patients could not confirm the initially reported difference between patients and asymptomatic subjects. Studies that involve experimentally induced muscle pain could provide better insite into the characteristics of the afferent fibers and synaptic circuitry that are involved in the jaw and facial reflexes.

Stomatodynia is a difficult disease for both patients and clinicians. When facing true stomatodynia, ie, idiopathic burn ing mouth, patients are offered poorly effective treatment. This open study reports the results of local application of clonazepam (0.5 or 1 mg) two or three times daily in 25 subjects who suffered from idiopathic stomatodynia. At the first evaluation, 4 weeks after the beginning of treatment, a visual analogue scale (VAS) that represented the intensity of pain decreased significantly from 6.2 ± 0.3 to 3.0 ± 0.5. At the second evaluation, 3 to 29 months after the first consultation, the VAS scores dropped significantly further to 2.6 ± 0.5. Analysis of the individual results showed that 10 patients were totally cured and needed no further treatment, 6 patients had no benefit at all, and the remaining 9 patients had some improvement but were not considered to be cured since they did not wish to stop the treatment. Blood level tests that were performed 1 and 3 hours after the topical application revealed the presence of small amounts of the drug (3.3 ng/mL ± 0.66 and 3.3 ng/mL ± 0.52, respectively). The hypothesis that clonazepam acts locally to disrupt the neuropathologic mechanism that underlies stomatodynia is proposed. The risk factors that are recognized for this condition could decrease the density and/or ligand affinity of peripheral benzodiazapine receptors. This, in turn, could cause spontaneous pain from the tissues concerned.

Low-frequency fatigue was investigated in nine female and one male adult pigtail monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) with a mean weight of 5.3 kg (range 4.3 to 6.5 kg). After sedation and anesthesia, silver electrodes were inserted into the anterior and posterior parts of the right masseter muscle. The contralateral muscle was used as a control. The masseter muscles were stimulated for 3 minutes (4 Hz, 2 ms, 100 V). After a 5-minute rest period, the stimulation was repeated with the same duration and voltage but at a higher frequency of 8 Hz. Bite forces were measured, and muscle biopsies were obtained from the central part of the right masseter and immediately frozen in liquid nitrogen. After freeze-drying, a fluorometric analysis that used enzymatic methods for measuring levels of glycogen, glucose, lactate, pyruvate, creatine phosphate, nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide (NAD), and reduced NAD (NADH) was performed. The bite force decreased by 12% after the initial 3 minutes of work. After the second contraction the bite force decreased to 56%. Prominent substrate depletion was observed. The precontraction levels of glycogen, glucose, and phosphocreatine were all reduced. The NADH and the NAD concentrations increased. An accumulation of metabolites was evident. The pyruvate increased by 32% and lactate levels increased by a factor of 3. The male measurements were comparable to the nine female measures for each assessment. The substantial substrate depletion in combination with a prominent accumulation of metabolites may contribute to the development of low-frequency fatigue.

Six cases are reported in which the primary complaint was episodic, recurrent facial pain that was triggered by a taste stimulus. The pain first occurred days to weeks after head and neck surgery. Patients reported that a food stimulus placed in the mouth evoked episodic, electric shock-l ike pain in a preauricular location on the surgical side. The smell of food or, less reliably, emotional excitement could also trigger pain. Mandibular movement did not evoke the pain, and between lancinating attachs there was either no pain or only mild discomfort. Following an episode of pain, there was a refractory period during which the pain could not be elicited. Physical examination demonstrated a preauricular sensory loss of variable distribution. No abnormal sweating or vasomotor findings were clinically apparent. No odontogenic, muscular, salivary gland, neurologic, or psychologic pathology was found to explain the clinical symptoms. The pain was not relieved with standard doses of anticonvulsants that are commonly used to treat trigeminal neuralgia. The duration of the recurrent pain symptoms in this group was 8 to 132 months without remission. Gustatory neuralgia may be a discrete syndrome that results from abnormal interactions between salivary efferent fibers and trigeminal sensory afferent fibers in the injured auriculotemporal nerve. The unique features of the disorder make it a potentially useful clinical model for the investigation of autonomic/sensory interactions in neuropathic pain.

The aim of this study was to examine the relation between alloplastic temporomandibular joint (TMJ) implants and immune-associated systemic health problems. The authors compared 14 patients who received alloplastic TMJ implants with 31 TMJ patients who had never received surgery on the self-reported occurrence of symptoms and systemic disorders that are associated with problems of immunomodulation. Those with alloplastic jaw implants reported similar or lower rates of surveyed physical disorders than nonsurgical TMJ participants. When the rates were summed across symptom categories and physical disorders, implant participants had significantly fewer symptoms and disorders than nonsurgical participants (P < 0.01). This first report on systemic health problems in alloplastic TMJ implant patients found no evidence of elevated rates of systemic disorders that are associated with problems of immunomodulation.