Megan
Megan came to our office with complaint of headaches, jaw pain, tinnitus, and numbness in the face. She had seen a neurologist, chiropractor, and ENT, and had received three different night guards by three different dentists over a six-year period, none of which helped. Her temporomandibular joints showed evidence of early degenerative joint disease, were overly compressed and retruded.
We provided her a rehabilitation orthotic along with 8 sessions of TruDenta dentamandibular sensorimotor dysfunction rehabilitation. All of her symptoms resolved and she is now maintaining with the orthotic for nighttime wear.
TRANSCRIPT:
I’ve been a grinder since I was little, for many years. As I got older, the grinding progressed into clenching. As life goes on and stress increases I was clenching more and more, um, probably more throughout the night while I was sleeping. Initially it was just soreness in my jaw, jaw pain, and some headaches. It increasingly got more painful and I was getting more headaches. I noticed ringing in my ears. I’d get numbness and tingling in my face. I could tell my speech was slurring.
So, throughout the process, I had gone through various different night guards… either they didn’t work or I was chewing them to shreds in the process… without me realizing it, I was doing it in my sleep. I’d just basically focus on the night guard and chew it. So then I had gotten some more durable ones, but they seemed to be more painful, because everything was just so out-of-wack… clenching in the wrong way on a hard piece of plastic was making it worse for me.
As things got increasingly worse I… thought it was more of my muscle rather than the teeth and that had always been my focus… was my teeth and not much the muscles. So I had just went online and started searching TMJ issues to try and find something that I can do myself to help the problem, and I came across neuromuscular dentistry… and I realized, I’m like, “that sounds like exactly what I need!”
That’s kind of how I came across Dr. Logan and I live in the area so I’d figured I would give it a shot. Because I was desperate… You feel like you’re crazy. You’re going out of your mind and no one understands what you’re talking about. I’ve talked to so many dentists. I’ve been to chiropractors, neurologists, eye doctors, you name it, and nothing seemed to be… even acknowledging the issue… so, I was pretty desperate.
After first TruDenta® rehabilitation therapy
The treatment was great. It was very relaxing. And as I went through the process and each different area was touched, I realized how much was sore and how many different muscle groups were involved in the process… whether it was, you know, my face, down my jaw, my neck, my back, and I realized every one of those things was, you know, tender or sore in some way, and I realized that’s what’s impacting all of the issues I’m having. I’m having a variety of issues and I didn’t know if they were connected or not and as I went through the process I could tell, you know, and I just felt so much better afterward… even my nose congestion felt good, my sinuses felt good, which were things I didn’t know were related or not. After relaxing all my muscles, I mean, definitely, you know, made a difference!
Towards the end of treatment
Basically, the difference between how I felt when I first came in and now, I’m definitely feeling just overall more relaxed. I can definitely see a difference in my jaw, in my shoulders, like everything is just calm and relaxed. In moments where I do get stressed, I can relax myself rather than get all caught up and tense and not be able to relax. I’m not getting headaches anymore like I was. I’m not feeling the pains in my scalp. Overall, just I feel… a big difference from how I felt in the beginning.