Neuromuscular Dentistry: Media News Releases

Neuromuscular Dentistry Press Releases

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Glossary

TMJ/TMD, or temporomandibular joint disorder, is a term used to describe a group of symptoms including headaches, facial pain, jaw pain, sore, chipped, broken, or worn teeth, clicking or popping in the jaw and limited jaw movement.
TMD stems from a condition called malocclusion, which means having a “bad bite.” Malocclusion means that your upper and lower teeth do not close together in the correct way—they are misaligned. This includes underbites and overbites. When the teeth are misaligned, they cannot provide the support the muscles in the face need for chewing and swallowing. These muscles are then forced into a strained position, resulting in pain throughout the face, head, arms, shoulders and back. Although a person may have beautiful teeth or had orthodontics to line the teeth up for aesthetic reasons, the muscles and joints may not be comfortable.
Neuromuscular dentistry places the jaw into its optimal position, relieving the symptoms associated with TMD. While traditional dentistry evaluates primarily the teeth, bones, and gums, neuromuscular dentistry works with the hard tissues and the soft tissues, muscles and nerves.
Each year more than 28 million Americans, a majority of them women, suffer from chronic tension and migraine headaches.
Sufferers miss work and spend billions of dollars on prescription drugs and over-the-counter remedies but can’t find relief.
A national survey of neuromuscular dentists say that the number one symptom their neuromuscular patients suffer are headaches, 75 percent, usually migraines, followed by jaw joint pain, 20 percent.
The survey shows that patients often live with these painful symptoms for several years without relief despite seeking medical attention from physicians, neurologists and chiropractors.
The immediate concern for neuromuscular dentists is to provide relief of your symptoms. The best way to do this is by using a technology called ULF-TENS - Ultra Low Frequency Transcutaneous Electrical Neural Stimulation. Basically, ULF-TENS is a way to relax your jaw muscles with a gentle massage.
Your neuromuscular dentist will create an orthotic to be worn over the teeth. The plastic orthotic, which is much like a mouth guard used by athletes, allows your neuromuscular dentist to make easy bite adjustments without adjusting the teeth.
There are a variety of ways to correct your bite in a more permanent way:
- Reshaping the enamel of your teeth;
- Orthotics, which fit over the back teeth and are designed to maintain an aligned bite;
- Reconstruction which involves making the teeth higher by using crowns to permanently realign the bite; and
- Healthy teeth can be moved to the optimal position using braces.