Hi Everyone and welcome or welcome back to my YouTube channel! I'm Priya Mistry, the TMJ doc.
Today's video is about why TMJ Disorders are often so difficult to diagnose and therefore treat. I'm
a huge advocate for all of you out there that are suffering with TMJ problems because I have seen
firsthand how debilitating they can truly be. Do you have constant headaches or neck pain? Do you
have ear pain, stuffy ears, vertigo, hearing loss? Has your jaw ever locked? Have you been to an ENT,
a neurologist, your dentist, your orthodontist - with no real answers or solutions? Do you feel
like you've been on a never ending journey where you're chasing your symptoms and it just feels
like you're not getting any real answers? If you watch this video until the end, I'm going to do
my best to explain why it's so difficult to get a proper diagnosis and proper treatment for TMJ
Disorders. I don't want to be making any excuses for us practitioners; that's not what this video
is about! It's just trying to explain why this can be so difficult to treat. For those of you
who don't know me yet, my name is Priya Mistry. I'm a General Dentist with a practice in beautiful
Portland, Oregon where we are dedicated to taking care of patients with TMJ Disorders.
If you haven't already, please do check out my Instagram page. I post on there quite frequently
and it's a good way to get in touch with me as well. I will be hosting a Giveaway soon,
so please keep an eye out for that! So let's get right into it! There are a number of reasons that
TMJ Disorders can be difficult to diagnose and difficult to treat. Let's start by defining TMJD
or TMD. This is a definition I came across on an online Facebook support group for people suffering
from TMJ Disorders and it was written by someone named Sean Smith, who's a very intelligent human
and if you know who I'm talking about, if you're watching from that support group, I think you've
probably seen his name a few times. I'm going to take a moment to read his definition because it's
one of the best definitions I've seen out there about TMJD. Sean defines it as, and I agree:
"a musculoskeletal condition involving multiple biological systems affecting the function of
the jaws, jaw joints, cranium, and neck which influences postural function throughout the body.
This condition may cause chronic pain, but is not defined by the presence of pain.
Multiple mechanisms causing cellular damage are part of the pathophysiology of TMD
and vary case by case. It is also referred to as TMJ or TMJD."
What a great definition! Thank you, Sean! As you can, see the definition is quite complex and the
reason these TMJ Disorders can be so difficult to treat is because the cause of them can often be
far away from the jaw itself. Imbalance throughout the postural chain can have strong ascending
and descending influences and since the jaw - the mandible itself - is just hanging out in
a sling of muscle, it is very responsive to changes throughout the postural chain
or imbalances throughout the postural chain. The postural chain - just to be clear - is the jaw,
the spine, the shoulders, the hips, and yes, even the feet. Oftentimes to ensure that our patients
get the best outcome possible, we work with multiple practitioners. We work with TMJ Physical
Therapists, we work with Chiropractors, we work with Craniosacral Therapists - people that do
massage and other body work, and this is how we're able to get our patients such a good outcome.
We all work together, so multiple practitioners consulting with each other and working together
is not oftentimes the way that modern medicine works. With modern medicine, each person has
their own specialty which is focused on one part of a whole system. The postural chain
and different practitioners coming together and working together to ensure the best treatment for
a single patient - that's not often done in modern medicine. That whole concept of working together,
the postural chain, how one part of the body can affect another part of the body - that's
not really accepted, understood, or even valued in modern medicine, which is so unfortunate because
it's vital to treat TMJ Disorders effectively. Another reason TMJ Disorders are so difficult to
diagnose and so difficult to treat is because TMJD is not part of the curriculum of medical
or dental schools, so it's sort of considered "no man's land". And the TMJ Doctors or Dentists that
are out there, or practitioners that are out there have often been on their own personal journeys and
have experienced the very symptoms you may be currently experiencing as a TMJ patient. Some
of these doctors have also had family that have suffered with chronic headaches, with ear pain,
with jaw pain, with the jaw locking, and that's what encouraged them to go out there and seek
more knowledge, seek more information as a way to better help the people that they care about.
These doctors have gone on their own journey just to even seek answers, which leads us
to the next reason TMJ Disorders can be difficult to diagnose and treat.
Once these doctors decide to start this journey to seek more answers, to seek more knowledge,
there's no real clear place where to start. There are so many different schools of thought
on how to treat TMJ Disorders: there's the Las Vegas Institute (LVI), there's Dr. Steven
Olmos with his TMJ and Sleep Therapy Centers, there's Physical Therapists that understand the
connection of the jaw to the pelvic floor, there are Chiropractors, there are Neurologists who
typically treat with medications and with botox, there are TMJ Surgeons, and there
are people who call themselves TMJ Specialists, and really the list goes on and on and on and
on. So really - where to start as a doctor when you want to learn more? Basically, you have to
pick one method learn about it and move forward, and then you can sort of go through all of them.
You can learn all the methods and come up with your own modality of treatment, which is what a
lot of practitioners really end up doing. Again, there's no clear standard of care, there's no
ONE right way to treat this. It's because the causes of TMJD can be so multi-factorial,
it can be difficult to really come up with a good way to treat this. I am not bashing any of
the methods that I'm talking about in this video. I've seen each of them work wonders for patients.
What I am saying very clearly is that there is no standard of care that's been established
for treating TMJ Disorders in either medicine or dentistry. Then you throw in the symptoms of
TMJ Disorders themselves - these symptoms are so vast and so varied and TMJD is often called "the
Great Imposter Disease" because it can mimic so many different things. It can mimic all types
of headaches, vertigo, Trigeminal Neuralgia, Fibromyalgia, really the list goes on and on.
So really, where does this leave all of the people that are suffering with TMJ Disorders? Well, I'm
sad to say that it often leaves them very confused as to know where to start. I have been fortunate
enough to have been trained by my amazing mentor, Dr. Arthur L. Parker. Dr. Parker went on his own
journey over 40 years ago and he has literally traveled the world. He did all of this where there
was no Google and he himself didn't have one clear mentor. So he traveled the world - he learned from
Orthodontists, he learned from Naturopaths, from Osteopaths, from Physical Therapists and using
everything that he learned, he created a regimen that works really well in our practice. We treat
typically with custom orthotics that put the jaw where it "wants to be" in three-dimensional space
to allow for optimal healing of muscles, joints, and ligaments. We treat with custom orthotics,
myofascial release, some craniosacral therapy, and osteopathic jaw manipulation - which is very
technique-sensitive, and it is a technique that Dr. Parker himself developed over several years.
I've been searching for several months for other Dentists that do things the exact same way
and I haven't been able to find a single Dentist that does jaw manipulation, so if you're a Dentist
that's watching this that does jaw manipulation in your practice, please reach out to me!
I want to tell patients in your area about you! I'd love to share notes with you, so please reach
out to me; I'm happy to hear from you! I find that jaw manipulation is vital in treating my patients
with locked jaws, and is very very helpful in treating my patients with jaw joint noises.
Fellow Dentists - I taught a webinar a few months ago that should be available as an online course
through California AGD. It's called "Demystifying the TMJ", so you should be able to get that course
and get the CE credits for it too online. I'll be doing another course March 25th I believe,
2021 - so this year; um called "TMD Orthotic Therapy: Taking a Bigger Bite Out of a Confusing
Topic". I did not come up with that title; I wish I did because it's a good one, but that will be
on March 25th through California AGD again, so sign up for it! I'm happy to share my knowledge
so we can help more of our valued patients. In terms of patients, please don't lose hope
if you feel like you've been searching far and wide and you've come up with no answers. Don't
ever stop advocating for yourselves and don't stop looking for answers. I've come up with a list of
similarly-minded practitioners - mainly Dentists across the United States and there are some
Physical Therapists on there as well. I'm hoping to have more Physical Therapists on there soon,
so if you're looking for a practitioner in your area, comment in the comment box below. I will
provide you with some names if I have some in your area. I'm happy to help. Again, I don't
know practitioners that do things the exact same way I do, but I do have a list of practitioners
that have studied and understand TMJD. If you like what you heard and you learned something,
click "Like", below don't forget to hit that SUBSCRIBE button. Please watch my other videos,
including my patient testimonials so you can kind of see the results that we're getting. My only
hope is to help as many people as I possibly can and remember - you can never have TMI about TMJ!