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Glossary
- Active Trigger Point
- A trigger point which is currently causing pain
- Acute
- Recent
- Alpha/Delta Sleep
- A type of sleep disturbance when stage 1 sleep shows up in stage 4 sleep. This is recorded when you have an overnight sleep study.
- Bruxism
- Grinding of teeth
- Centric Occlusion
- Teeth together
- Centric Relation
- Joints in the socket
- Cervical
- Neck
- Chronic
- Long-standing, meaning weeks, months, or years, but does not mean incurable
- Clench
- Holding teeth tightly together
- Condyle
- The head of a bone which fits into a socket to make a joint
- Fossa
- Joint socket
- Latent Trigger Point
- A trigger point which is not causing pain but which is still tender to push on
- Ligament
- Restricts the movement of a joint
- Malocclusion
- A bite which causes problems with either muscles, joints, teeth, gums, or bones
- Management
- Watching and guiding for the sake of proper control
- Mandible
- Lower jaw
- Masticatory
- Chewing
- Maxilla
- Upper jaw
- Myofascial Pain
- See extended definition.
- Muscle Spasm
- A muscle which has increased tension due to nonvoluntary nerve action
- Neurotransmitters
- Chemicals made in the nerves that allow the nerves to "talk" to one another.
- Non-restorative sleep
- When you wake from sleep but don't feel rested... or when you go to bed tired and wake tired.
- Occlusion
- Bite - the way your teeth fit together
- Primary Muscle Pain
- The source of the muscle pain
- Range of Motion
- How far you can turn a joint, usually expressed in degrees
- Referred Pain
- Pain felt at a site distant from the source
- Refined Carbohydrate
- Sugar
- REM Sleep
- Rapid Eye Movement - a stage of sleep where the brain is active, and the muscles are paralyzed. During this stage of sleep the muscles are actually paralyzed, The exception to this is the jaw muscles are not paralyzed. REM sleep is also the lightest stage of sleep and one that we are very likely to awaken from because of the increased brain activity. When awakening occurs, we do not go back into REM but start all over again in either stage 1 or stage 2.
- Sleep Stages
- The different cycles of sleep that we travel through during the night. In the normal person these are the approximate percentages of each stage during the course of a night of uninterrupted sleep:
Stage 1 5% light stage of sleep, high brain activity , high muscle activity Stage 2 50% a little deeper stage with less brain activity but high muscle activity Stage 3 10% the beginning of deep sleep with less brain activity high muscle activity. Stage 4 10% this is deep sleep with very low brain activity but continued high muscle activity. REM 25% this is when the reverse of stage 4 occurs, and we have high brain activity and paralyzed muscles except for the jaw muscles - Sleep Stage I
- high brain activity, high muscle activity
- Sleep Stage II
- Lower brain activity, somewhat lower muscle activity
- Sleep Stage III
- Lower brain activity, somewhat lower muscle activity
- Sleep Stage IV
- Deep sleep, lowest brain activity, considerably lower muscle activity
- Splint
- A plastic oral appliance designed to give a near perfect bite when it is worn. NOTE: A splint will not change your bite; it will only allow you to have a good bite when it is in your mouth.
- Stage transition
- In a healthy sleep pattern, stage transition occurs when we sleep and do not awaken the entire night. We cycle through sleep stages 1, 2, 3, 4 and REM four to five times per night.
- TMD
- Temporomandibular disorder is a collection of symptoms which is called a syndrome. Some of these symptoms may be headache, neck and shoulder pain, and frequent awakenings.
- TMJ
- Temporomandibular joint, which is the joint in front of your ear
- Trigger Point
- A point of irritable muscle tissue, which is especially tender to squeezing or pressure, and usually causes referred pain
Contents © 2005-2009 Lexington Headache Clinic and Marshall Ney DMD. All rights reserved.