Bite plates and Migraine

Another piece of the puzzle for me was getting fitted with a bite plate.

This problem went undetected for some time since I don't grind my teeth.

I do, however, clench my jaws when I sleep. I don't think I would have made the connection between that fact and my migraines, except that I kept meeting people who said: "Oh, I used to get migraines, but then I got a bite plate and they got better."

That made me pay more attention, and sure enough I would often wake up with my jaw clenched and pain radiating up and down from my jaw. That was enough to trigger a migraine.

I went to my dentist and told him about the problem. He made a mold of my teeth and had  a bite plate made for me.

Et Voilà! No more pain radiating from my jaw. 

It's not cheap, about $400.00, but for me it was worth it. That was a couple of years ago now, and as I say it was just one piece of the puzzle, but it helped.

Another related puzzle piece is TMJ (jaw joint) tension. Because I tend to clench my teeth, my jaw muscles tense up even with the bite plate. The solution is simple. A Chinese practitioner taught me an easy massage for the jaw that really relieves the tension. This is important because the trigeminal nerves run through the TMJ joints (one on either side). The reason this is important is because of what the trigeminal nerve controls. Right after I do my little massage, I feel my sinuses open up and my neck lose some of its stiffness. What I don't feel, but is silently affected is "The control of the blood flow to the anterior 2/3 of the brain via the dura mater" as one source said. It's not hard to see how that could affect migraines.

To illustrate:

If one looks at the nervous system and compares it using an analogy to electrical wiring in a house, it is easier to understand these complex mechanisms. When you blow a fuse or circuit breaker it is usually the overloaded circuit that blows i.e. you plug in the toaster and the microwave at the same time and you blow a fuse. Everything on that circuit no longer works correctly. If you unplug either the toaster or the microwave all other symptoms function normally. So it is with the trigeminal nerve; it is the largest fuse to our brain carrying over 50% of the total input to our brain when it blows we get migraines, tension headaches, TMJ pain, ear aches, stuffy ears, and more.

(Source: ihateheadaches.org)

The simple TMJ massage:

Use the middle finger of each hand to rub the TMJ joint side to side. The motion should be relatively fast but gentle. Rub for 10-15 seconds. And to prevent the  'reset' mechanism, it's good to then open your mouth as wide as possible slowly twice or three times.

That's it! 

Repeat the massage whenever you feel like your jaw is tense, including any time you wake up through the night.