Reported symptoms and clinical findings in a group of subjects with longstanding bruxing behaviour

Signs and symptoms of craniomandibular dysfunction (CMD) and social medical history were reported in 29 subjects, aged 23-68 years, with longstanding (5 years or more) bruxing behaviour. The subjects were selected from answers to an advertisement in the local newspaper. The subjects presented many symptoms of a general character including somatic and psycho-social problems, sleep disorders (72%), and pain (86%). More than half of the subjects (55%) had symptoms every day. Frequent aches in the neck, back, throat or shoulders were reported by 69% and frequent headache by 48% of the subjects. The most common symptoms of CMD were pain in the face or jaws (48%), stiffness in the jaws in the morning (44%), temporomandibular joint (TMJ) sounds (34%) and fatigue in the jaws during chewing (38%) and the most common clinical signs were more than three muscles tender on palpation (76%), TMJ-sounds (55%) and tenderness of TMJ on lateral palpation (66%). There was a statistically significant correlation between frequent tooth clenching and headache, pain in the neck, back, throat or shoulders, sleep disorders and high scores of the clinical dysfunction index (Di). The frequent clenchers had higher score values than the 'non-clenchers' for pain in the face and the jaws; headache; pain in the neck, back, throat or shoulders and the clinical dysfunction index (Di). These findings indicate a causal relationship between frequent tooth clenching and signs and symptoms of CMD, including headache and pain in the neck, back, throat or shoulders and high pathogenicity for frequent clenching. However, the material in this study is small and some precaution must be taken prior to generalized conclusions. More studies are required, especially sleep laboratory investigations, which could perhaps give answers to some of the numerous questions in this unexplored field of odontology.