A story about Kat, her migraines, and her NTI nightguard

I’d like to sup­ple­ment the last post about Kat’s treat­ment with the story of a dis­cus­sion we had after an appoint­ment some­time in 2008, when she’d had her NTI-tss night­guard for about 18–20 months.  It demon­strates just how “mirac­u­lous” a treat­ment the NTI can be for chronic migraine headaches.

When Kat first came to us, she had suf­fered migraine headaches for as long as she could remem­ber (I’m not allowed to tell you how long that is, of course — a gen­tle­man never asks nor tells a lady’s age!), and she had tried prac­ti­cally every med­ica­tion, had every scan done, had allergy test­ing done, mas­sage, chi­ro­prac­tic, phys­i­cal therapy.….…..you name it, she’d tried it.  I think the only thing she hadn’t done was Botox, ’cause she doesn’t like that idea.

2 weeks after start­ing to wear her NTI, Kat came in for her first follow-up visit and told us in amaze­ment and plea­sure that the ONLY headache she’d had in those 2 weeks was the day after drink­ing a bit too much and for­get­ting to wear her NTI.  It was one of the first days in years she had no headache and no migraine!  And that con­tin­ues today.……

But the cool thing.….because some­times peo­ple are hes­i­tant to pay $600+ for a “night­guard” from a DENTIST, of all peo­ple, to treat their headaches.…..after she’d had her NTI for those 18 months, I asked her the fol­low­ing question:

“Kat, if I were to offer you $1,000 (One Thou­sand Dol­lars) to buy your NTI back from you, with the con­di­tion that you could never get another one, would you take it?“
Kat looked at me as if I were crazy for a moment before burst­ing out laugh­ing and ask­ing, “Are you crazy????  No way!”

So there you go…she wouldn’t even accept $1,000 for a piece of acrylic and lexan, because it’s made that big a dif­fer­ence in her life.

Would you be will­ing to pay $1,000 if all you had to do to get rid of your migraine headaches was to wear a custom-fitted and adjusted den­tal night­guard?  Instead of all the med­ica­tions?  What if your insur­ance would not cover it?

Given that I occa­sion­ally suf­fer migraine headaches myself (usu­ally when I’m over­worked, not sleep­ing well, not eat­ing enough, AND most impor­tantly, not wear­ing MY NTI), and I know just how excru­ci­at­ing the pain can be, I am often amazed that some­one would not pay $650, which is our usual fee, to stop the suf­fer­ing, but they would pre­fer to keep suf­fer­ing because their insur­ance won’t take it.  Huh?  I don’t get it.…..