Conditions: Bruxism
Keywords: bruxism, botulinum toxin, sleep study
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 23
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to determine whether botulinum toxin helps patients with bruxism.

Detailed description:
Bruxism represents involuntary movements of the jaw muscles, resulting in tooth grinding and clenching. Generally it occurs during sleep, but occasionally can be present during the day, so called awake bruxism. Bruxism is a common condition, affecting approximately 8% of all people. It is not known what causes bruxism but it may result in tooth damage, jaw pain, headaches, poor quality sleep and may bother your partner's sleep at night due to the tooth grinding noise. There is no generally accepted treatment for bruxism. Mouth guards and several medications have been tried, but they generally did not work or caused side effects.

Botulinum toxin "Botox" is a natural toxin, which weakens the muscles when injected in very small amounts. It is currently approved and used for the treatment of various conditions involving abnormal muscle spasms, such as neck twisting (torticollis), twitching of the face (hemifacial spasm) or eyes (blepharospasm), headaches, muscles stiffness following strokes, and it has also been used cosmetically for wrinkle removal.

Since bruxism is caused by involuntary spasms of the jaw muscles, botulinum toxin has been tried, initial results showing that it is safe and effective. The injections generally take one week to start working and 2 weeks for a full effect, which lasts on average 12-16 weeks, and slowly wear off. The injections are generally repeated every 3-4 months.

Arms:
arm 1: Placebo arm arm 2: Active arm

Interventions: intervention 1: Botulinum toxin type A intervention 2: Placebo arm
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Patients are injected with botulinum toxin type A (BOTOX) 60 units in each masseter muscle and 35 in each temporalis muscle, bilaterally. intervention 2: Placebo comparator

Protocol document: