“I wish I never had TM Joint surgeries” Dentists “Don’t worry about jaw popping” until it locked up!

Dentists are generally taught that “painless jaw clicking are normal”. Even that TMJ problems get better on their own. But I have never met a patient with severe TMJ problems that never had any sign of poor jaw alignment unless it is immediately after a traumatic jaw injury. Every one of them had indications but were just “monitored”. No dentist would just watch a “painless” cavity long enough for it to become a root canal problem. Yet, dentists usually don’t worry about jaw popping because they have not been taught how to fix the problem non-surgically. So when it becomes bad enough, they would be referred to a surgeon. But does THAT strategy help patients?
Terra is from Minneapolis area. For decades, her dentists had told her “Don’t worry about jaw popping”. So Terra did not worry. Until the jaw locked up. Then one TMJ doctor tried a splint which made the jaw locks even worse. The next one referred her to an Oral Maxillofacial surgeon that treats TMJ. Most surgeons stay away from TMJ surgery. But this surgeon did a lot of TMJ surgeries.
First surgery was in June was cleaning up the joint and injecting steroid into the TM joints. Surgery #2 was open joint surgery to remove any remnants of the cartilage and put in a fat graft. That resulted in massive swelling and pain. After diagnosing that as an allergic reaction to the membrane, Surgery#3 in August was needed to remove the failing graft. The surgeon recommended replacing both TM Joints with artificial joints. Knee joints replaced with artificial joints all the time. It is a whole lot more complicated to replace a TM Joint which is the most complicated joint in the body.
Terra had lost confidence in these recommendations - all of which involved serious and irreversible surgeries. That is when she decided to look for an alternative. Keep doing the same thing and expecting different results…just did not make sense to her.
Terra initially saw Dr Raman to see if he can help with her TMJ pain even at that stage. In fact, the most disabling symptom was her severe vertigo. She could not function when the vertigo flared up. She also had constant and loud tinnitus that she could hear over any ambient noise. Headaches and other symptoms were also robbing her quality of life.
His clinical examination confirmed that she had jaw alignment “TMJ” problems and that is the likely root cause of her many symptoms even well beyond the jaw. Her severe vertigo, headache, neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, fatigue could be also due to poor jaw and neck alignment - Cranio Cervical Mandibular Dysfunction CCMD.
Terra went through detailed diagnostic tests including our unique "Raman CCMD Protocol" of Physiologic Neuro Muscular Dental (PNMD) procedure to determine the optimal jaw and neck alignment. She was then fitted with a neuromuscular fixed orthotic on her lower teeth only for 90 days as a reversible phase 1 treatment. PNMD Fixed orthotic looks like and acts like teeth. She would chew with it, speak with it and live with it 24/7 every second of every day. This is both a therapeutic and diagnostic step.
She started noticing improvements very quickly. In fact, her vertigo, tinnitus, and headaches improved immediately. The jaw pain also improved. But after 3 surgeries in each joint, her joints were quite damaged.
This is one of the important reasons that we use a PNM Fixed orthotic. It is correcting the jaw alignment truly 24/7, every second of the day. Of course, the key is how accurately the jaw / neck alignment was diagnosed first. Much work goes into using computerized data including surface Electromyography that is one part of the Raman CCMD Protocol to precisely diagnose this jaw / neck position. That is the alignment that the fixed orthotic maintains.
Within weeks of Phase 1 Fixed orthotic, her symptoms were improving significantly. Terra’s neck pain, jaw pain, headaches and shoulder ear pain improved immediately. Her sleep improved and energy level improved greatly also.
By 4 months, after 30 days of phase 2 Neuromuscular orthodontic, Terra reported: 40% overall subjective improvement from beginning of treatment.
Performed muscle palpations and recorded 10/44 painful points with a pain score of 33/132 vs 32/44 painful points with a pain score of 96/132 Pre op.
Checked cranio-cervical range of motion. 90 degrees to the right and 90 degrees to the left vs 0 degrees to the right and left pre op.
Patient Reviewed individual symptoms and level of improvement: 1. Vertigo 90% 2. Tinnitus 30% 3. Ear pain - 60%. 4. Headaches 100%.
Terra’s expectations for improvement were quite low. She already had TM Joint surgeries 3 times. There is not much left in the joint to function by this time. Yet, it blew her mind to experience so much relief so quickly.
That is the power of Physiologic Neuro Muscular Dentistry!

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