Donald R. Nixdorf, D.D.S., M.S.
TMD & Orofacial Pain Clinic
Department of Diagnostic & Biological Sciences
University of Minnesota, School of Dentistry
6-3 Moos Tower
515 Delaware Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612-626-0140
http://www.dentistry.umn.edu/facultystaff/faculty_bios/Nixdorf,_Donald/home.html
Transcript: Splint therapy’s role
The idea of splint therapy as a treatment option for neuropathic pain such as trigeminal neuralgia is somewhat controversial. There are some people that think that it works really well and there are some people that said it doesn’t have a role.
My position on that is depends on what are the co-morbid disorders. There are some people that have hypersensitivity in the trigeminal system. It relates to having sore muscles, sore joints and splints are helping treat that secondary component. There’s another group of people where they actually have two different disorders. There’s nothing that says that they can’t have trigeminal neuralgia and TMD. Actually I saw a patient with both those disorders, diagnosed at two different times, just yesterday. So, we can have two diagnoses and treating two totally different things.
Specifically though for nerve related, one type of pain such as deafferentation pain like neuropathic tooth pain or trigeminal neuralgia which we don’t know what the cause is, specifically for that, I do not see a role in splint therapy.