Waheed-ul Hamid, Arfan-ul Haq, Hafiz Shaker Mahmood, Muhammad Azeem, Sameen Irfan.
Comparison between ibuprofen and chewing gum for orthodontic pain control.
Pak Oral Dental J Jan ;36(1):79-83.

Pain is common experience in orthodontic patients that begins two hours after force application and reaches peak at 24 hours, then lasts for 5 to 7 days. The objective of this study was to compare the decrease in pain score with ibuprofen and chewing gums in orthodontic pain control during the first week after initial arch wire placement. This study was conducted at de,Montmorency College of Dentistry, Lahore, from April 2014 to October 2014. 250 patients with age range of 12 to 16 years of both sex were selected and divided in to ibuprofen and chewing gum groups (125 each group) using random number table. The patients in each group received pain control 24 hours after initial arch wire insertion and then at 8-hour interval till 7th day. Patients were asked to complete a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) Questionnaire, at 24 hours after arch wire insertion, then at 24 hours, and 7th day. Two-way ANOVA was used for analyzing significance of mean decrease in VAS between two groups. Results showed that decrease in pain score for ibuprofen group; baseline to 24 hours was 2.35±1.36 which was significantly lower than decrease in pain score for chewing gum group 3.34±1.34. At 7th day, ibuprofen group showed decrease in pain score as 4.07±1.43 which was significantly lower than decrease in pain score of 5.86±1.56 for chewing gum group. This was concluded that chewing gums showed more decrease in pain score for orthodontic patients as compared to ibuprofen.

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