Association between Temporomandibular Disorder Pain and Primary Headaches – An 11-years’ Follow-up

Objectives:
The objective of the current study was to asses the association between painful TMD signs and primary headaches, comprising mainly tension-type headaches (TTH) and migraine, in a follow-up period of 11 years.
Methods: The current study utilized data from the Health 2000 Survey and the Health 2011 Survey (BRIF8901), conducted by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) of Finland. Bayesian logistic regression with weakly informative priors was utilized to assess the association between muscle related TMD pain (mTMD) and temporomandibular joint related TMD pain (jTMD) at baseline (the Health 2000 Survey) and primary headaches at the follow-up (the Health 2011 Survey). Validity and reliability of the results was confirmed through Bayesian sensitivity analyses.
Results: Given the priors, data and models described in the current study, none of the baseline TMD pain variables was associated with the presence of migraine at the follow-up (95% credibility intervals -0.44 - 0.19 for mTMD, and -0.45 - 0.47 for jTMD). Regarding TMD pain and TTH, only mTMD at baseline was associated with the presence of TTH at the follow-up (95% credibility intervals 0.07 - 0.71 for mTMD, and -0.93 - 0.14 for jTMD). Bayesian sensitivity analyses revealed that the estimates of the regression models were stable, demonstrating the validity and consistency of the estimates.
Conclusions: No association was observed between painful TMD signs at baseline and the presence of migraine during the follow-up period of 11-years. However, baseline mTMD was associated with the presence of TTH at follow-up.