Searing headaches,
missed work, cancelled social
events -- if you're a migraine
sufferer, these are all familiar scenarios.
But for the
nearly one-in-twelve adults in the United States who suffer unbearable
pain on a regular basis, there is hope where conventional prescription
medicines often fail. The Food and Drug Administration has approved
a new piece of equipment that may be the answer to more than 20 million
prayers.
The device is
called the NTI Tension Suppression System (NTI) and for the millions of
people who wake up with migraines each day, it is generating amazing results.
"One serious problem migraine sufferers experience is severe contraction
of the jaw muscles while they sleep," explains leading Dentist and headache
expert Dr. Chris Kammer, "The NTI device is a small custom-fit plastic
appliance that fits comfortably over the two front teeth keeping the jaw
slightly open during slumber and resulting in a significant decrease in
morning migraines."
While we sleep,
we naturally and subconsciously contract our temporalis muscles, the jaw
muscles that entirely cover the sides of our heads. Migraine victims
typically contract these muscles up to 14-times more intensely than non-sufferers
causing severe head pain in the morning. According to Dr. Kammer,
however, the NTI device reduces the severity of the contractions by nearly
70%.
"We originally
began using similar appliances to help prevent TMJ headaches and other
types of jaw problems," continues Dr. Kammer, who has been studying the
relationship between teeth and headaches for more than 15 years, "but when
the NTI device was tested on migraine victims, we found that four out of
five of them experienced more than a 75% reduction in pain."
The use of the
NTI device in reducing migraine headaches is also a breakthrough because
it produces no side effects. "Many commonly prescribes medicines
can result in ancillary problems and still not prevent or cure many incidents
of migraines," adds Dr. Kammer. "Use of the NTI mouthpiece produced
no additional pain or unpleasant side effects. In fact, studies showed
that it helped reduce migraine-related nausea by close to 80%."
23 million people
over the age of 12 suffer severe migraine headaches in the United States
alone. This results in sleeplessness and missed work costing businesses
an estimated 17 billion dollars in lost productivity.
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Information Provided By
KMR Cpmmunications
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