TMJ Treatment

TMJ TREATMENT

Neuromuscular/TMJ

Do you experience any of these symptoms?

• Headaches
• Loose teeth
• Worn, chipped, or cracked teeth or fillings
• Clenching or grinding
• Pain or clicking and popping in joints
• Shoulder, neck, and back pain
  Numbness in arms and fingers
• Pain behind the eyes
• Facial pain
• Difficulty swallowing
• Pain and sensitivity in teeth
• Crowded teeth
• Receding gums
• Ringing or congestion in the ears

These can be a result of conflict between your teeth, jaws and muscles. Dr. Hey knows how to accurately diagnose these problems. We use a number of sophisticated instruments to find the position of the jaw where the muscles are relaxed and at rest. This is a three-dimensional position in space and is often irrespective to the position of the teeth.

We begin by relaxing the muscles of the jaw with a device called a Myo-Monitor. It is a low frequency T.E.N.S. (Transcutaneous Electrical Neural Stimulation) unit. This device delivers a mild electrical impulse to the muscles that move the jaw. The rhythmic pulsing (once every 1.5 seconds) relaxes the muscles. In addition to relaxing the muscles, it sets up ideal muscle function by increasing blood flow, flushing out toxins. After 45 minutes of stimulation, the muscles are in their ideal position.

At this point we utilize the K-7, our computerized diagnostic equipment to record this position and transfer it to casts or models of your teeth.

The Computerized Mandibular Scanning Unit utilizes a magnet placed in front of your lower front teeth and a sensor array to measure and record this ideal position in three dimensions.

The Eight Channel Electro-myograph is used to verify that this new position results in decreased muscle activity. Muscle activity is measured by recording the amount of electrical activity in individual muscles.

Sonography is another parameter that is measured by our K-7. A set of sensitive microphones that look like headphones are worn over the joints. These measure joint sounds, pops, and where they occur in the opening and closing of the joints. These sounds can then be analyzed with respect to frequency which allows evaluation of joint damage.

Once we have verified the comfortable position of the lower jaw, we can fabricate an orthotic that allows the jaw to close to this ideal position. In this position, the muscles are at an ideal length and will not go into spasm. Muscles will heal, pain trigger points will go away, and joint capsules will heal. This orthotic is left in place for three months to stabilize the bite and insure that all symptoms are gone.

At this point a decision is made to wear the orthotic indefinitely, have orthodontics done to move the teeth to this ideal position, have one or two arches of teeth restored, or to adjust the bite to this ideal position.

For more information please visit www.saukvalley.com