Clinical effectiveness of acupuncture for mandibular subluxation and dislocation.

Clinical effectiveness of acupuncture for mandibular subluxation and dislocation. Acupunct Electrother Res. 2010;35(3-4):187-92 Authors: Lu DP, Lu GP, Lu PM Abstract Dislocation or subluxation of mandible could occur suddenly without Patient's awareness of its forthcoming. Patient may discover suddenly during yawning, laughing, or when the mouth is wide open that he or she could not close the jaw. It may cause serve anxiety and apprehension, that may put the patient in such a nervous state that may worsen the condition, and also may spastically tense the muscles associated with dislocation. We treated 37 patients in the past and found that, although five patients could be manipulated to have their dislocated jaw reduced to the normal state, we found that a majority of the cases could not be manipulated without supplementing with other adjunctive methods such as acupuncture at the pertinent acupoints, or injections of local anesthetic around the temporomandibular joint area. Twenty-seven patients were successful to have the dislocation or subluxation reduced, five patients required local anesthetic for reduction and 1 patient had to have the reduction done in the operating room under deep sedation. We found acupuncture is valuable in reducing the mandibular subluxation and dislocation. Three acupoints in calming down the patients were a valuable aid during treatment. LI 4 which is known to reduce pain in head and neck region could inc...
Source: Acupuncture and Electro-Therapeutics Research - Category: Complementary Medicine Tags: Acupunct Electrother Res Source Type: research