1. Who needs Functional Jaw Orthopedics?

A: Surprisingly a huge number of people; children, teens and adults. Anyone, young or old, could need Functional Jaw Orthopedic treatments, usually in the form of the more advanced type of orthodontics known as Functional Jaw Orthodpmtics. Here is why?

1. Children who have bad bites that trap and hold their lower jaws back too far, making their chins appear weak and making their upper teeth seem to stick too far out (buck teeth), often need some form of Functional Appliance treatment to make their faces appear normal and their smiles appear broader and more full.

2. Children with chronic recurrent headaches, in the absence of any other known medical cause, (such as diabetes, lupus, or fibromyalgia etc.), definitely need to be evaluated for treatment with Functional Appliances. There is a 95% chance that their chronic recurrent headaches are related to some form of bad bite (chronic headaches in children are defined as 1 per month or more!). This holds true even if their bite appears “perfect” i.e. looks normal to the untrained eye. It must be remembered that looking right and actually FITTING right are to different things. This is true even if the child has already had braces! Changes in jaw growth direction can change everything.

3. Adults who have chronic recurrent headaches with or without jaw clicking during talking and chewing should definitely be evaluated (by someone who truly knows how to employ Functional Jaw Orthopedic techniques) for treatment with removable European – style Functional Appliances. Seldom will such techniques not provide the solution to chronic TMJ-based headache and facial pain problems, again even if braces have already been used once in the past.

4. Adolescents and adults who have had four side teeth (“bicuspids” or “premolars” as they’re called) extracted as part of their orthodontic treatment with metal braces and who have frequent headaches DEFINATELY should be evaluated for “TMJ” and the possible need for treatment with Functional Appliances!

2. Is there a lot of controversy associated with TMJ treatment?

A. Again, boy is there! Here is why. “TMJ” can range from barely perceptible to very severe. It represents a whole family of odd symptoms. No two TMJ patients are exactly alike in frequency, duration, intensity, and variety of symptoms. Yet, in a way, from a broader more global view, people with the advanced form of TMJ are generally alike. They follow a pattern. They can have their peculiarities in how they manifest their particular problems but generally the big thing the advanced TMJ patients all have in common are chronic recurrent headaches, and the migraine, with all its odd attributes and “focal neurological phenomenae” is the end stage of the long TMJ-based headache continuum. This is a big shock for both the medical and dental communities to have to choke down. But it’s true and nowdays, thanks to modern “high-tech” science, we can prove it! In over 30 years of treating patients, I’ve never seen a migraine headache patient that didn’t have TMJ of the type we have been discussing here on this website! NEVER! The association of one with the other has proven out over these many years to be that incredibly consistent! That’s why knowledge (and the whole conglomerate of the Functional Jaw Orthopedics Philosophy) concerning the actual details of how Functional Appliances work is so important in these modern times. Dramatic and major changes in the status quo of any discipline are historically often met with major resistance. I can’t help that. In all fairness, many dental clinicians, specialists, and generalists alike are converting over to these new methods. Those that resist and criticize Functional Appliances have never really learned how to use them. Those that do learn never go back to the mistakes of former ways!