To investigate the efficacy of danggui shaoyao san (DSS) in relieving periodontal pain in orthodontic treatment.

All 111 orthodontic patients were stratified by genders and then randomly assigned to DSS, ibuprofen, placebo groups (37 cases in each group) . Periodontal pain was recorded and analyzed within 5 days by VAS to compare the effects of DSS and ibuprofen. Then the VAS data of the three groups was compared through One-Way AVNOA tests with SPSS 20.0 Statistical Package which indicated that the differences between the three groups were significant with relevant P-values below 0.05 level.

Under disocclusion condition, Pain scores of both DSS and ibuprofen groups were evidently less than that of the placebo group at all the time points of survey (At 6 hours, VAS_DDS= 13.6 ± 1.2, VAS_ibuprofen= 11.0 ± 1.1, VAS_{placebo grops}= 18.7 ± 2.2; F= 226.998, P<0.01) ; During the first 12 hours, the analgesic effect of ibuprofen was better than DSS group (At 12 hours, VAS_ibuprofen= 16.9 ± 1.3, VAS_DDS= 19.9 ± 2.0, t= 7.303, P= 0.000) ; But there was no significant difference between DSS and ibuprofen after 24 hours (At 24 hours, VAS_DDS= 20.7 ± 2.7, VAS_ibuprofen= 20.7 ± 2.3; t=-0.052, P= 0.959) ; The result was similar under occlusion condition.

DSS is effective to relieve the pain. Ibuprofen′s effect is relatively significant in early stage but has no difference later on when comparing to ibuprofen.