In late 2005, the National Institutes of Health launched a seven-year clinical study to identify risk factors that contribute to the development of these jaw and muscle disorders.
During the study, which will track 3,200 healthy volunteers to see how many develop these conditions, scientists hope to get a clearer picture of early disease. That knowledge could lead to new approaches to treatment, refinements in diagnostic criteria and an ability to predict a person’s natural genetic susceptibility to chronic pain disorders or personalized medicine.
Closer to clinical use today are a number of designer drugs “that go to the heart of pain,” says Dr. Harold Menchel, a dentist who runs the TMJ & Facial Pain Institute in Broward County. “There’s a lot of newer biochemical stuff coming out.”
For now, however, in the absence of physician agreement over which treatments work best, and an array of doctors who treat TMJ — from rheumatologists, oral surgeons and dentists to neurologists and ear, nose and throat specialists — Menchel says a conservative, nonsurgical approach is warranted.
“In most cases, TMJ is a self-limiting entity,” he says, meaning they go away with minimal treatment over time. Only the most severe cases, about 5 percent, require surgical bite correction, Menchel said
“We shouldn’t do anything permanent,” Menchel stressed. “You treat the pain discomfort and restore function as best you can and as simply as you can — that’s the gold standard.”
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