Case of a 22 Year Old Female with TMJ Pain, Dystonia and Twitching

Just wanted to report to all.   I was busy with patient the last 2 days.

I had female patient (22 years old) in for the last 2 days who came here (to Vegas) with all sorts of issues – had neck and face twitching movements, spasms, pains all over head, front to back, down to shoulders, behind eyes, etc. she said she felt her head was twisted…. diagnosed by multiple experts in field (long page(s) list of doctor names, specialists, etc, Mayo clinical, USC dental school pain depart, all kinds of pain clinics surgeons, rheumotologists, etc)…said she had Dystonia, many MRI’s, blood tests, accupunture, botox, arthocentesis, etc. all say they can’t find anything wrong, they are bewildered…funny thing is multiple MRI didn’t show what they should be looking for.

Mulltiple MRI’s May Not Show the Problem

They did brain MRI in one session, down road they did CT of joints, later MRI of joints again, then MRIs of cervical spine…another TMJ MRI’s she brings in multiple discs (a stack of them of her joints) on MRI’s she has had by all kinds of folks including prosthodontist, oral surgeons, big time university clinics… MRI from various places and experts..(no shortage of MRI’s here with this case) …Patient should be glowing by now…

She had to wear dark sunglasses to block room light due to eye sensitivities over the last 6 months now…..none could figure out what to do…in the mean time she is sucking her food, can’t chew, jaw opens wide no problem, but when she tries smiling her jaw goes wildly off to one side, then later it goes off to the other side…neck tremors. facial grimaces…..with tons of pain,….she even had previous ortho with Herbst appliance.

K7 Diagnostic Work Shows What MRI’s Can’t See: The Medical and Dental Profession Needs to Be Aware

We did our K7 work up. placed the duotrodes and later sensor array to measure these responses.  Data indicated she is super narrow goal posted with 0.2 mm habitual freeway space with aberrant movements, very low EMGs at resting (abnormal). functional clench EMGs showed she couldn’t recruit muscles when she bites her teeth together (yet on cotton roll biting muscles recruited and responded)  No problem opening up, but it was guarded on open and closing jaw movements, left and right joints reduce on max opening, but yet are stuck and are displaced with condyles in an up and back joint position.  It is funny how many experts missed this.  None concluded surgical intervention nothing to them made sense so they give up.  Nothing to justify surgery here. It is interesting how a conservative, logical and rationale approach is used here.

Before moving on I measured objectively with my trusty K7 and TENS using my proven optimization protocols to find the proper mandible, joint position without guessing. I know it’s a pain in the butt for many to understand and comprehend this ( you all can)  The father of this patients (a dentist came and watched the whole process with interest), systematically and methodically doing the OC process.  We found the right mandibular location vertically, antero-posteriorly, frontal laterally, reduced and corrected both joints, repeated the K7 test to confirm,  It is so nice to have objective measuring data to see where the mandible, joints and muscles are happiest…it took time to do (2 sessions in the 2 days they were out here in Vegas).  There is no fast trick.  We definitely didn’t use any sticks between teeth (as some have advocated in dealing with movement disorders…why? Oh…but did create and carved out a nice sapphire emergency anatomical bite registration (firmer) to start the healing process of this young patient (Sapphire is really great for this type of stuck disc conditions when patient is highly proprioceptively aware.

Nice terminal contacts we found with K7 to land the occlusal marks precisely with this initial emergency orthotic she is now wearing 24/7.  Patient realized she can eat and chew with it.  Wow….no twitching in neck,….no dystonia in face or eye blinking closures….It is amazing how the GNM principles  make it possible to find a proper jaw location so one knows exactly where to line up the anatomical form in the bite to make the jaw and muscle function more normally.  It sure cuts the chase, shortens multiple wasted visits of agonizing years of frustrations.  It sure seems to more quickly than most methods used on this patient. Dentist father witnessed the 2 day event.  Now stands very hopeful after many years of searching and taking daughter to all the many big time experts from all over.  They see the light of GNM.  Now father wants to come take our courses at OC.

Patient is arranged to come back in 2 weeks for short follow up visit.  I am thinking in this particular case to continue using this sapphire bite (orthotic) for now until things calm down and will later make her the real orthotic once she is proven more stable.

 – Clayton A. Chan, D.D.S. – Dentistry, Las Vegas, NV

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Case of a 22 Year Old Female with TMJ Pain, Dystonia and Twitching