Lane & Assoc Family Denistry - Dr Mike in Studio With Everything We Need To Know About TMJ

Do you suffer from TMJ?  Does it alter how you live your life?   Nearly 6 out of 10 people have TMJ and Dr Mike sits down with Erica DeLong to share in detail what we need to know. Hear from the experts at Lane & Associates Family Densitry.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Do you one of five? It'sthe Erica Show iHeartRadio. We have doctor
Mike with Lane in Associates Family Dentistry, and today we're talking about something that
I don't think I have, soI'm going to be learning about it along
with our listeners. TMJ, Hello, welcome. What is TMJ? So?
TMJ is a dysfunction of the jawjoint that really encompasses a lot of

(00:22):
different things. People will well knowand think that they have TMJ a lot
of times when their jaw clicks,pops, or locks, but there's so
much more to it that sounds likea song by the way pop block and
drops. Yeah, Okay, sothey think they haven't when they hear little
clicking noises. Yeah, and that'sdefinitely a sign of it. So if

(00:42):
you have that and kind of strugglewith that, it's something to get evaluated.
But so many of our patients havehave TMJ problems that never have that
symptom, So they'll present with withsymptoms that don't seem intimately connected with your
jaw, like headaches or ringing inyour ears, or tension in your in

(01:03):
your neck, numbness in your fingertips. It can be a lot of different
things, and it can be oneor a combination of many of those things
to cause that trouble. How doyou know if it's TMJ versus general pain,
Well, you certainly need to beevaluated by somebody that knows, you
know, how to to kind ofevaluate the TMJ symptoms. We do imaging

(01:26):
to kind of assess the joint,the health of the joint, look at
the function of the joint, andthen just to a real thorough patient history
evaluate kind of how they got tothis point, how things progressed or deteriorated
to the stage that they're at now, and just to really thorough thoughtful conversation

(01:46):
with the patient in conjunction with evaluatingtheir signs, symptoms and X rays and
come to the conclusion of whether ornot it is TMJ or not. What
does TMJ stand for? What arethose letters stand for? By the way,
So that's something that's uh, that'skind of a funny thing we say
TMJ, but that name U isactually that acronym is for the temporal mandibular

(02:09):
joints. So the proper that's thethe nanatomical kind of you're way over my
head, doctor, Mike. Yeah, So the the the TMJ is the
actual joint itself, so really amore proper name for the for the symptoms
and the syndrome is TMD. Sotemporal mandibular disorder would be any or all

(02:32):
of these things that are related tothe disorders that are caused by the you
know, dysfunction of the temper mandibularjoint. Okay, So I'm glad that
they say TMJ because it's way easierto remember. Yeah, and I think
that's why. Yeah, Now,how often do you get patients that come
in that have been misdiagnosed with certainsymptoms? All the time, and this

(02:55):
is a really huge percentage of mypractice now, so oftentimes I've had patients
that have been misdiagnosed or mistreated.TMJ is often called the great impostor because
it mimics so many different things.There's plenty of time where I'll have a
patient in that says they have trigeminalneuralgia, which is a common well not's

(03:22):
thankfully not very common, but it'sa commonly diagnosed neurological disorder of the face.
One of the telltale things is whenI see somebody and they tell me
that, and I said, well, show me where it hurts, and
they kind of will rub against theircheek. It tells me that they very
likely don't have trigeminal neuralgia, becausewhen you truly have that, even the

(03:46):
wind that blows against your face willhurt. So if you go close enough
to somebody to try to touch it, they'll literally back away from you.
It hurts that badly. The symptomskind of run the same course, so
that's a commonly, you know,a commonly misdiagnosed one, but it happens
all the time. Many times ourpatients will come in with ear symptoms,

(04:11):
ear pain, ear congestion, ringingin the ears, and they'll have already
been to the to their regular physicianand their E n T doctor, right
they look in their ear, theydo what they can do, and most
times they determine that that all lookshealthy, but they're still having the symptom.
Getting more common now for them torefer folks like that to us for

(04:32):
evaluation, and a lot of timeswe find out that it really doesn't originate
in the ear itself, but reallymore from a dysfunction of the bite.
My first thought is sinuses, becausewhen you start talking about all of this
area. Do sinuses affect that andis there a way to prevent getting TMJ
so they don't affect it directly.But again you have to be a little

(04:53):
careful because of the symptoms certainly overlap. So with this sinus problem or a
person that has chronics sinus problems,you know, they can think they're having
a TMJ type problem and it maynot be that it might be a manifestation
of a sinus problem. So that'sagain when it's really important to go through
and do a thorough exam diagnosis,and you know, the X rays will

(05:15):
show us a lot of times whetheror not they have something acutely going on
or chronic in the sinus. Howcommon is as ten people, how many
would you say have TMJ? Youknow, it's it's a really good question,
and I would say conservatively at leastfive to six out of ten.
Yes, Oh my gosh, reallysome degree of bite dysfunction. So how

(05:38):
do we stop or prevent it orcalm it down? So to speak?
The treatment of it really depends onthe severity of the symptoms. So there
are plenty of patients that I've seenover the years I've evaluated and they have
signs and they have symptoms, butit really doesn't affect them and they're not
interested in pursuing the treatment because youknow the treatment and can be quite involved,

(06:02):
you know, looking at things andkind of being proactive in early symptoms
is good. So if your jawspopping or clicking, you definitely want to
mention it to your dentist, andyou know, so we want to kind
of get involved early with kind offollowing that up and not letting it progress
to And then I've had her girlfriend. She actually gets botox as a preventative

(06:23):
or to help with the pain.Is that very common as well? It
is very common. It's not somethingthat I do particularly. The thing with
botox is that it really treats thesymptom, not the problem. Yeah,
if you have facial pain, whatit basically does is paralyze the muscle and
it gets rid of that pain.It does a good job of managing that

(06:46):
symptom. The trouble is, it'skind of like almost taking pain medications,
so you've masked the symptom for now. It gives you some relief, which
makes sense. The trouble is thesource of the problem is still there,
and so you might be propagating what'scausing that problem, and it can be
causing even more damage well while youcan't feel it, and so once that

(07:06):
wears off, it tends to bemore intense. So if I were to
come into Lane In Associates Family DIndustry today, how would you diagnose me?
And like what steps do you taketo help with TMJ there. So
the first thing we would do,of course, is a very thorough exam
and history. So I'd want toknow how did you get to the point
where you are. So let's sayyour jaw is popping, popping, clicking,

(07:32):
and it locked and that's what broughtyou into the office. So first
I would kind of talk about,well, is this the first time this
happened? And how when did youfirst notice these symptoms? And let's say,
you know, well, I didn'thave any problems, you know,
while I was younger, and thenI had an accident, you know,
while I fell on my bicycle whenI was you know, nineteen years old

(07:56):
doing something and had this accident,and then and ever since then, my
jaw kind of I got I fellin my head, my my jaw's been
popping, And we would know thenkind of what to look for so we
would do the imaging. We'd takea three D CBCT image and kind of
assess the health and the function ofthe joint. We are very, very

(08:18):
centered on having the muscles comfortable.So the type of dentistry that I practice
is called physiology based dentistry. Andso while assessing the best position to fix
the problem, we really take adeep dive into where the muscles are more
comfortable, and that kind of helpsto evaluate and get rid of any symptoms

(08:39):
that are muscle based like headaches orneck and shoulder pain. So we evaluate
that using electromiography a lot like acardiologist would use an EKG to check your
heart. Okay, I know EKGthe other stuff. I'm like, I
don't know what you're saying. Okay, So electromiography EKG is electromiography specific for
the heart any other muscle, soit's MG okay, And so those are

(09:03):
We measure the facial and the neckmuscles, so the electrical activity and at
rest we try to get it intoa position where that activity is minimal,
so the muscles are truly resting.We find a position where we can keep
the disk in your join in placeand the electromography shows that the muscles are

(09:24):
more comfortable, and that's what weuse to initially kind of set your bite
in that position. So we recordthe bite and then we have a couple
of appliances made that fit in yourmouth. One during the day, one
at night. They're called orthotic appliances. Are they similar to a retainer or
it's more of like a in thesame spirit? Is okay? That it

(09:45):
fits over your teeth, so they'reclear they fit over your teeth. The
big difference with a retainer or anorthodonic devices they're made to either stabilize or
move your teeth. This is reallymade to fit over the top of your
teeth, change the way that yourjaw functions. Okay, And it's it's
it's very it's amazing the technology andstuff. Then how it's you know,

(10:09):
progressed over the years. Oh.I feel just incredibly lucky to be able
to do this for a living.I just left my office and before I
left, there was a lady thatI saw that I started treating. I
just gave her appliances last Friday andshe came in. She's pain free.

(10:30):
She had a tiny little concern.We took care of that, but you
know she's had this pain for severalyears, right, she said, if
you would have told me, andshe's like, you did, tell me,
they're putting this piece of basically plasticin my mouth would fix this problem.
That she had done so many things. But it is just amazing to
me how well it works so manytimes if you do the property proper history

(10:54):
and physical and and make sure thatthat everything is right. We have just
had tremendous success and been able tohelp so many people. It's just very
gratifying work. I have a girlfriendwho is debilitating for her where she can't
even come to work sometimes because it'sso painful. She'll have to just work
remote. And so to hear thatthat lady had changed everything for her,

(11:16):
that's incredible. To hear the feedbackthat you're getting from your patients and what
a difference it makes. It's areal blessing to be able to do it.
And it spans so widely. Iwould say the largest kind of most
popular age group that we treat issomewhere between thirty and fifty. Okay,

(11:37):
but I've treated children as young asten, including my own daughter at fourteen,
and adults as old as ninety four. Is there anything that makes it
flare up or it just kind ofhappens. It just happens, And that's
just different for each person. Socertainly some will say, you know,

(11:58):
I notice it more when I eatharder things, or you know, if
I travel and sleep on a pillowor a mattress that's not my own,
or riding along in the car.You know, everybody seems to have different
triggers, and it's it's a it'sa funny thing because it's you know,
like I said, this kind ofumbrella of TMD dysfunction just encompasses so many

(12:20):
different things that you know that thetriggers for it can can vary. Really,
And when does someone I know thatthey need to come in and seek
professional help from you or others atlene In Associates Family Dentistry. That's a
good question, and it's it justvaries. There's some people at the first
sign. I saw a guy todaywho's a friend of mine, and he

(12:43):
has what I would call very mildsymptoms. He's just began, he's probably
close to my age, having clickingin his jaw, and he cannot stand
it. He wants it fixed,and that's fine. I would say,
when should you add do it iscertainly when it starts to affect the way
that you live. And doing thisnow for the last you know, almost

(13:07):
exclusively doing this kind of work forthe last ten years. It's amazing how
many of those stories there are.So, you know, I can't go
out and play catch with my kidson Sunday afternoons. I can't, you
know, I have to lay downin the middle of the day. I
like your friend, I can't makeit into the office some days. It's

(13:28):
just it's just too much. AndI mean, certainly when you get to
that point, you know you needto start thinking about you know, asking
somebody to evaluate it. And likeI said, it's just the improvement that
we can give to these lifestyles isjust is just incredible. In most cases,
where are you located? Like wheredo people go? Which office?

(13:48):
Because lane ds obviously all over theCarolina So what office are you at?
Yes, we're in the Lane Fallsof the News office, which is at
seven hundred Exposition Place in North Raleigh, near the intersection of Falls and Use
in Strickland Road. What restaurant isnear that intersection? So that way,
because that's how some of us.Don't really turn left at the McDonald's.
Yeah, so it's in between Winston'sand Piper's. Oh perfect, No,

(14:11):
exactly where you're at. Yeah,find a few blocks south of Lafayette Village.
Okay, perfect. See that's thedescription some of us use. Well,
thank you so much, doctor Mikelandds dot com. Thank you so much.