If you have pains in thee head (as in migraines), neck, shoulders, lower back and other parts of the body, and doctors could not explain why after a series of x-rays and other diagnostic techniques, the problem may be found in your mouth.

Two dentists who are pioneering a new branch of dentistry in the Philippines — Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) treatment—may solve your problem. Drs. Pablo and Lolita Fandialan are providing a dental answer to these pains and other effects of the dysfunction of TMJ, the joints at the back of the ears where the jaw bone is attached to the rest of the skull.
The science they practice revolves around the correct bite. "A correct bite is important," Lolita said. "You bite when you eat, when you swallow your saliva, when you sleep, when you exert an effort. In fact, the muscles that make you bite are among those most often used by the body. When that bite is incorrect, it misaligns the joint forcefully. And that is where the problems begin."

A person develops a misalignment of the jaw joint over the years, as when he loses a tooth due to extraction or when the teeth had worn out because of grinding and normal chewing. The muscles and the nerve that make them move adapt to such changes and worsen the misalignment.

Such misalignment in the joint — which has a gap of three millimeters between bones — results in some arteries, muscles and nerves being pinched. In particular, the superficial temporal artery which runs between the skull and the tip of the jaw bone may be pinched, resulting in reduced blood supply to the jaw muscles. "And depending on which muscles are affected, the effects are visible: the face looks deformed.
When the pinch is on the Auriculo temporalis nerves which also run through the joint, the person feels pain in its peripheral terminals in the head, neck shoulders, back — even as far as the feet.

The couple stumbled upon TMJ when Lolita herself suffered from migraine headaches and mysterious lower back pains. When her doctor recommend an exploratory surgery after other tests turned out negative, Lolita got scared into searching for alternative answers in books and through consultations with friends, a dentist, lent her a book written by Dr. Harold Gelb which introduced her to TMJ treatment.

In 1988, when she heard that Gelb was conducting a lecture on the subject in Singapore, she and husband Pablo went there to find out more about this new dental approach.

More studies later, the couple developed a system of diagnosing TMJ dysfunction, as the ailment is called, and treating it without recourse to "invasive techniques" that involves surgery.

Already, they said, they have treated 158 patients suffering from TMJ dysfunction. Of the total, 100 were successful, while 43 were unsuccessful not because the technique was a flifire but because the patients were not cooperative in wearing the splints which cause initial discomfort.
The Fandialans' procedure is a mixture of techniques developed abroad which they found effective when used together.

First a patients jaws are x-rayed to find out how they are aligned. The x-ray results are correlated the castings of the patient's upper and lower teeth, using the conventional method.

These findings are further confirmed through the use of the Kinesiologic test. Here, the patient is asked to stand and raise his right or left arm (depending on whether he is right- or left handed) to shoulder level. The patient is then asked to clench his teeth, and pressure is applied on the raised arm.

"Usually, a person with an incorrect bite would be weakened by the clenching of his teeth," Pablo said. "His arm will be able to bear more weight if his teeth are not clenched. People with normal bites would have the same strength whether they clench their teeth or not."

Once the TMJ dysfunction is confirmed, a splint made of plastic is attached to the patient's teeth to correct the jaw's alignment. The patient is made to wear the splint for six months at all times, especially while eating, until the jaw muscles and nerves would have gotten used and adapted to the correct bite and jaw alignment.

When the TMJ alignment is restored and the bite corrected - or the muscles have been trained to move the jaw the way -It should during eating - the traditional dental work begins.

If the patient is a child, Lolita —who has specialized in orthodontics — takes over with braces to correct the stand of the teeth are missing, dentures are made by Pablo in his own laboratory. If the teeth have minor defects, filling is done or caps are attached to them to ensure that the proper physiological position on the jaw is maintained.

But the result need not be felt after six months.

"The problem with TMJ treatment is that it is not yet recognized even by doctors, not to mention our fellow dentists." Lolita said.

But the couple is spreading TMJ treatment among their colleagues. They have conducted several seminars on the subject, and a few dentists in Metro Manila are now practicing the technique.

Body aches and pains can be cured by dentist