Pain control during fixed orthodontic appliance therapy

The control of pain during orthodontic treatment is of great interest to both clinicians and patients. However, there has been limited research into the control of this pain, and there is no standard of care for controlling this discomfort. This prospective study determines the pain sequelae in fixed orthodontic treatment and evaluates comparatively the analgesic effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the control of this pain. One hundred and fifty orthodontic patients who were to have teeth bonded in at least one arch were randomly assigned to one of six groups: (1) placebo/placebo, (2) ibuprofen/ibuprofen, (3) flurbiprofen/flurbiprofen, (4) acetaminophen/acetaminophen, (5) naproxen sodium/naproxen sodium, and (6) aspirin/aspirin. The pain evaluations were made during chewing, biting, fitting the front teeth, and fitting the back teeth using a 100-mm visual analogue scale (VAS) for seven days. All the analgesics succeeded in decreasing the pain levels compared with the placebo group. However, naproxen sodium and aspirin groups showed the lowest pain values, and the acetaminophen group showed VAS results similar to those of the two analgesics.