TMD & Bite Splints
At Victoria Place Dental Practice in the heart of beautiful Biggleswade, Bedfordshire we not only offer a complete range of dental services but can also assist with certain headaches and facial pains that may fall under the category related to disorders with the jaw joints and their surrounding muscles called Temporo-Mandibular Jaw-Joint Disorder, sometimes shortened to ‘TMJ’ or ‘TMD’.
Our principal dentist Dr Raj Ahlowalia (now retired) had many years of experience in this field and for several years taught the subject to dentists from all over the world at both The Pankey Institute in Florida and The Spear Centre for Advanced Dental Education in Arizona. Several of our dentists are therefore persoanlly well trained by Dr Ahlowalia in this field.
We also have Dr Pavandeep Khaira who for many years has taught the treatment of chronic TMD pain anongst many other fields of complex dentistry and advanced oral surgery.
And we have former A&E doctor Dr Saul Diaz-Reales who offers muscle relaxing injections to help ease both Bruxism and muscle related TMD issues where excess muscle activity is suspected to be the cause. Such injections can also be tried short term to eliminate excess muscle activity as a possible cause.
If you are suffering a chronic head or neck pain that your GP is unable to help with consider a no-obligation consultation. It may not be TMD but if it is we may be able to help.
There are a multitude of reasons why someone may be suffering with TMD.
It could be a long forgotten random injury to the jaw that has torn a ligament that was perfectly tolerable whilst we were young, but as we age those old forgotten injuries can start to rear their ugly heads and cause all manner of aches and pains.
It may be that some old dental injury, or repair that has altered the natural balance of the bite putting joints into asymmetric positions that older, more worn out or arthritic joints can no longer tolerate.
Similarly for people asymmetrically grinding their teeth imbalances in their jaw alignment could ensue over time leading to strains within the joint system.
Sometimes it can even be elective dentistry that disrupts the delicate balance. It might be tolerable in our youth but years later those imbalances can start to bother us.
Sometimes the use of custom balanced hard plastic ‘bite splints’, which are not the same as ‘rubber night-guards’, can rebalance such misalignements.
Bite Splints act much like a lift would in the shoe of someone with different length legs that cause twisting of the hips and spine. Level out the feet and the hips can align, the twisted spine straighten and the whole lot be under less strain. Likewise an ‘orthotic’ worn in the mouth can reduce strain at the jaw joints.
Sometimes excessive teeth grinding can make TMD symptoms worse. The two things may not be related as teeth grinding or clenching has its own causes, but where a patient also suffers from TMD pain then grinding or clenching can make the pain worse. For such cases another treatment modality that could be tried is muscle relaxing injections.
Each TMD case therefore has to be carefully assessed to decide which treatment might be the most appropriate.
Some cases may require more than one treatment modality to find relief from this complex problem.
Dr Ahlowalia uses custom balanced hard plastic ‘bite splints’.
By carefully analysing the strains and imbalances in the chewing system the surface shape of a splint can be meticulously adjusted and refined to relieve the strain on tired and painful joints, ligaments, muscles and even individual teeth under strain.
Bite splints have even made it into the movies. Do you recognise the famous actor/director with the rather prominent jaw in the clip below? Can you imagine him really needing a bite splint in real life as a result?