Effect of experimental chewing on masticatory muscle pain onset

• Autor(a) principal: Conti, Paulo César Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Outros Autores: Silva, Rafael dos Santos, Araujo, Carlos dos Reis Pereira de, Rosseti, Leylha Maria N., Yassuda, Shigueharu, Silva, Renato Oliveira Ferreira da, Pegoraro, Luiz Fernando
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Journal of applied oral science (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/jaos/article/view/3867
• topic: Myofascial pain syndromes; Chewing; Palpation

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effect of a chewing exercise on pain intensity and pressure-pain threshold in patients with myofascial pain. METHODS: Twenty-nine consecutive women diagnosed with myofascial pain (MFP) according to the Research Diagnostic Criteria comprised the experimental group and 15 healthy age-matched female were used as controls. Subjects were asked to chew a gum stick for 9 min and to stay at rest for another 9 min afterwards. Pain intensity was rated on a visual analog scale (VAS) every 3 min. At 0, 9 and 18 min, the pressure-pain threshold (PPT) was measured bilaterally on the masseter and the anterior, medium, and posterior temporalis muscles. RESULTS: Patients with myofascial pain reported increase (76%) and no change (24%) on the pain intensity measured with the VAS. A reduction of the PPT at all muscular sites after the exercise and a non-significant recovery after rest were also observed. CONCLUSION: The following conclusions can be drawn: 1. there are at least two subtypes of patients with myofascial pain that respond differently to experimental chewing; 2. the chewing protocol had an adequate discriminative ability in distinguishing patients with myofascial pain from healthy controls.