|
|
|
|
The following correspondence from the New England Journal of Medicine in 2000, describes the case of a 66 year old woman who had undergone a dental procedure and subsequently experienced intense jolts of "electric" pain in her right palate and right trigeminal region. Interestingly the pain was also brought on by light touching of the cheek and was relieved by gabapentin. In the correspondence the origin of the pain is suggested to be oral galvanism, as the pain relented following the replacement of an amalgam filling with a porcelain one. The author also states that the "galvanic" currents probably triggered the patient's trigeminal neuralgia. NEJM Volume 342:2003, June 29, 2000, Number 26 Galvanism is also mentioned as being a cause of secondary burning mouth syndrome in a 2007 article from JADA. J Am Dent Assoc, Vol 138, No 5, 628-633, 2007. Another article from JADA, in 2003, investigated the role of oral galvanism in tooth decay and how to decrease oral galvanism. The study concluded that the galvanic current between gold and amalgam fillings was increased when the amalgam filling contained zinc and that this current could be reduced by treating the amalgam with tin oxide or silver nitrate. According to the study, the estimated incidence of painful oral galvanism is 0.4%. The study also states, however, that in the dental literature, pain from oral galvanism is typically self-limited. J Am Dent Assoc, Vol 134, No 11, 1463-1467, 2003.
Picture above is a "Rita Meter". |
|
|
