Migraine Therapy
FDA-Approved Device Prevents Migraine Headaches
NTI-tss Device Takes the “Squeeze” Out of Headache Pain Without Drugs
Did you know that the intensity of nighttime jaw clenching can lead to persistent migraine
pain and chronic headaches? That’s the principle behind the newest and perhaps only
preventive weapon in the war against migraine and tension headaches - a tiny one-inch
device fit over your two front teeth and worn during sleep. To date, over 500,000 people
have used the device to quell both the intensity and frequency of migraine headaches on
every continent in the world. Twenty-three million Americans suffer from severe migraine
pain with the associated loss of productivity estimated at $17.2 billion yearly.
Developed by Dr. James Boyd, a dentist and long time migraine sufferer, the new mouth
guard called the Nociceptive Trigeminal Inhibition Tension Suppression System, or NTI-
tss, is as surprisingly simple as it is effective: 82% of migraine and headache sufferers
who use the device experience an average 77% reduction of migraine pain attacks within
two months. The devise is easily fit at the dentist’s office, involves no surgery, and has no
risk of side effects compared to pharmaceutical migraine treatments. A discrete daytime
version is also available.
Approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a device not merely to
minimize migraine pain, but to actually prevent it, the prototype NTI device was first
designed by Dr. Boyd after he exhaustively poured through existing research on the
relationship between neuromuscular tension and headaches. While the complex central
nervous system origins of migraine headaches have yet to be scientifically identified,
clinical studies have shown that relaxing the intensity of neuromuscular contractions in
the head, neck and jaw can significantly reduce both the occurrence and the severity of
recurring headache pain.
"Preventing back molar and canine teeth from touching each other or another object
reduces the neuromuscular intensity exerted by the temporalis muscles by two-thirds,"
says dentist Howard May of Los Gatos, California, part of the first dentist-physician team
to form a clinic focusing on headache prevention using the device.
“Over 8,000 dentists have prescribed our NTI-tss device so far,” says Dr. Boyd. “And
for the first time, we’re hearing dentists receiving thank you calls from their patients –
something that usually doesn’t happen after a root canal.”