After the Dental Appointment

Have you ever wondered if your jaw pain or misalignment, your headaches, or your body aches and pains are the result of that last visit to your dentist? If you do then you’re not alone. But did you know that the number one cause of TMJ disorders is the actual dental work itself? That trip to the dentist may have long-lasting effects other than just a cute smile and straight teeth.

It’s important to understand that this isn’t the dentist’s fault. They need to get their hands inside your mouth to do the necessary work and get the job done. If the dentist has larger hands, then they may need to open your mouth wider, stretching and consequently turning off muscles in your jaw. If the patient has a smaller mouth, then the patient may need to open their mouth wider to accommodate the dentist and their tools, resulting in the same injuries. By the way, having a “big mouth” can help you avoid TMJ and cranial problems.

So, what are your options? Bite splints are often used to hold your jaw in its proper alignment. Braces may have to be re-installed in an effort to correct muscular weaknesses and imbalances caused by the dental work. However, this approach to a TMJ muscular imbalance is like keeping your broken bone in a cast forever or using crutches for the rest of your life.

Other therapies include making structural corrections in the bones that make up our head, otherwise known as the cranium. Cranial Therapy, Cranial-Sacral Therapy, Sacro-Occipital Technique, etc. are names of various techniques that have been developed to normalize the movement of these cranial bones. Our cranial-sacral movement is extremely important to help keep our bodies healthy.

These therapies, which include gentle movements that encourage these bones to move correctly, are excellent and needed. However, it is important to remember that muscles move bones and hold them in their proper alignment…not the other way around. Moving these bones is often only half the therapy needed.

Another approach includes the ability to diagnose and turn back on the muscles of the head, neck, and jaw that can become injured and “turned off” through jolts, jars, falls, and impacts, as well as through dental work.

As an Applied Kinesiologist, I have been trained to perform cranial therapy via manipulation of the cranial bones. I am also trained to discover which muscles of the jaw have been turned off and then I turn them back on so they will hold and maintain the required cranial corrections.

Structural imbalances in the cranium and the TMJ mechanism may be linked to such maladies such as (the obvious) jaw pain, headaches, vision problems, neck and upper back pain, as well as (the not so obvious) knee pain, middle back and low back pain, foot pain, as well as digestive problems of all kinds.

If you or your loved ones are suffering from the results of jaw trauma, call me, Dr. Joel Vickers at Vickers AK Chiropractic at (616) 738-1200 and let me fix your TMJ and cranial imbalances!