title: Sensitivity of patients with painful temporomandibular disorders to experimentally evoked pain.
abstract: Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) represent a group of chronic painful conditions involving the muscles of mastication and the temporomandibular joint. We determined whether patients with painful TMD are more sensitive to noxious stimuli than age-matched control subjects. Fifty-two TMD patients (16 with muscle pain and 36 with combined muscle and joint pain) and 23 age-matched and gender-matched volunteers participated. Forearm thermal pain threshold and tolerance values were determined. A submaximal effort tourniquet procedure was used to evoke ischemic muscle pain. Relative to control subjects, TMD patients had significantly lower thermal pain threshold, ischemic pain threshold, and ischemic pain tolerance values; and thermal pain tolerance values also tended to be lower. Pain sensitivity did not differ between the two groups of TMD patients. Furthermore, the submaximal effort tourniquet procedure, which is capable of altering acute orofacial pain (Sigurdsson and Maixner, 1994) did not produce a consistent reduction in orofacial pain associated with TMD. We concluded that TMD patients are more sensitive to noxious stimuli than pain-free controls. These findings provide additional evidence that TMD is a psychophysiological disorder of the central nervous system which modulates emotional, physiological and neuroendocrine responses to emotional and physical stressors.
authors.affiliation: Departmet of Endodontics, Department of Pharmacology and the Dental Research Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7455 USA.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Maixner
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fillingim
authors.forename: Donna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Booker
authors.forename: Asgeir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sigurdsson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003782:Dental Pulp / Q000502:physiology; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010147:Pain Measurement; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D011603:Psychophysiology; D012016:Reference Values; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000503:physiopathology; D013706:Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction Syndrome / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology