The secondary headache in dentistry
Watanabe, N.; Shimohira, M.
Nihon Rinsho. Japanese Journal of Clinical Medicine 63(10): 1777-1785
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 0047-1852 PMID: 16218390 Document Number: 594736
This report summarizes the secondary headache attributed to dental disease. Among a lot of dental diseases, the temporomandibular disorder(TMD) is the most important for understanding the mechanism of this type of headache. Our recent study showed that TMD patients had the following symptoms: dysdiadochokinesia, abnormal induced-rigidity in forearms, abnormal circadian rhythm, tension-type headache and mental torment. All these abnormal symptoms were relieved by the improvement of the patient's sleep-quality. The brain monoaminergic systems are known to be related to muscle tonus, sleep problems and mental symptoms. Our studies of a serotonin transporter(5-HTT) gene promoter polymorphism showed that the L and XL alleles were more frequent and S allele was less frequent in the TMD compared to the controls. We speculate the brain monoaminergic systems play the important pathophysiological roles on the TMD.