• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.275-281
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• 2010

The lateral pterygoid muscle is one of the masticatory muscles basic to jaw function. Because of its deep location in the masticatory system, digital palpation of the muscle is usually difficult to perform and unreliable. Therefore, diagnosis of the myalgic disorders involving the lateral pterygoid muscle is a perplexing problem for clinicians. Local anesthetic injection can be a more effective method to examine the lateral pterygoid muscle for the purpose of discriminating the source of pain. Furthermore, immediate elimination of muscle pain facilitates stretching of the muscle in the full range. We report two cases of lateral pterygoid myalgia that were diagnosed and managed successfully through the use of intramuscular local anesthetic injection.