Chronic migraine patients are thrice more likely to suffer jawbone disorder

Washington: Beware! Patients with chronic migraine are three times more likely to suffer from severe jawbone disorder, finds a recent study.

Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo's Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine in Brazil found that the more frequent the migraine attacks, the more severe will be the so-called temporomandibular disorder (TMD) - Pain and compromised movement of the jaw joint and the surrounding muscles. The findings revealed that the signs and symptoms of TMD were observed in 54 percent of the control participants, without migraine, 80 percent of participants with episodic migraine, and 100 percent of those with chronic migraine.

The temporomandibular joint acts like a sliding hinge connecting the jawbone to the skull, therefore the disorder's symptoms includes difficulty chewing and joint tension. It results showed that patients with chronic migraine, meaning attacks occurring on more than 15 days per month, are three times as likely to report more severe symptoms of TMD than patients with episodic migraine.

First author Lidiane Florencio stated that central sensitisation may explain the association between the frequency of migraine attacks and the severity of TMD. However, the researchers claim that the research was the first to consider the frequency of migraine attacks when analyzing its connection with TMD.

The team assessed 84 women in their early to mid 30s, where 21 were chronic migraine patients, 32 had episodic migraine, while 32 with no history of migraine were included as controls. "The repetition of migraine attacks may increase sensitivity to pain," she said.

TMD is stress-related as much as it has to do with muscle overload, where the patients display joint symptoms - such as joint pain, reduced jaw movement, clicking or popping of the temporomandibular joint. Lead researcher Debora Grossi said that migraine patients are more likely to have signs and symptoms of TMD, but the reverse is not true. There are cases of patients with severe TMD who don't present with migraine.

Grossi added that having TMD may worsen one's migraine attacks in terms of both severity and frequency. The results appear in the journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics.