Abstract
Purpose: Since lack of number of specialists for orofacial pain, as a primary care facilities, general dentists need to have the knowledge of orofacial pain and be able to manage those patients as much as possible.
Orofacial pain is the result of symptom caused by several factors which are related each other. Some of the factors might be able to be removed by general dentists such as inflammation, occlusal trauma or occlusal factors. After the removal of those factors, other problem such as physical symptoms or neuropathic symptoms can be distinguished. Following removal of risk factors, I reevaluate the patient response and transfer the patients to medical specialists. Occasionally the dental treatment may influence other risk factors to improve the symptom. We manage the orofacial pain patients as follows;
1. Listen to the patient narration carefully, take away their anxiety and give them hope.
2. Try to remove inflammation, occulusal trauma and occlusal factor. Controlling bruxism is necessary because occlusal trauma especially bruxism is one of the important factors for orofacial pain.
3. Treating patients with minimal intervention. For controlling bruxism, my treatment is mainly consisting of self instruction method (kind of cognitive behavior therapy) as patient self control. Occlusal splint is used as supplementary.
I introduce my management method for orofacial pain patients by showing three cases.
