Acupuncture is effective to facial pain -research update

Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) is a condition affecting the movement of the jaw. Signs of TMD include: pain around the jaw, ear and temple; clicking noises when moving the jaw; a headache around the temples; difficulty opening the mouth fully; jaw locking when opening the mouth. The pain may be worse when chewing and stressed. TMD can affect sleep.

One review analysed the data to study the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating pain from TMD. The data is for 25 years from 1990 t2015. The result has shown that acupuncture treatment appears to relieve the signs and symptoms of pain in myofascial TMD. Another study was from 8 publications involved in 231 patients with TMD. The result indicates that conventional acupuncture therapy is effective in reducing the degree of pain in patients with TMD, especially those with myofascial pain symptoms.


References
Fermandes AC et al J Oral Facial pain Headache (2017) Summer;31(3):225-232. doi: 10.11607/ofph.1719.
Wu JY et al Medicine (Baltimore) (2017) Mar;96(9):e6064. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000006064.