TMJ 'dysfunction' - Health implications

"Let me reject all the received opinions and know only what I can with the power of my own mind.
Let me try to construct assiduously from the base up the scaffolding of my thought on the subject”.

Presenting a new concept of care - a new discipline of Cranio Dental and Skeletal Symmetry™ (CDSS)

Have you ever wondered why we have so many millions chronically sick? Well, you may find the answers in this article. I first managed to help a patient recover from chronic severe migraines after six months of inpatient hospital investigations, which had resulted in the verdict that her problem was actually of "psychiatric origin"!

That was some 40 years ago. I was able to use my dental common sense to evaluate that her bite was incorrect. This had occurred because her amalgam restorations in all her premolar and molar teeth had been placed without proper regard to her occlusion under general anaesthesia a couple of years earlier. Her migraines resolved over one weekend, never to return. She went on to have a family and excelled at work to become a senior banker in the City of London.

I thought little about this "medical" success and concentrated on improving my restorative discipline to great precision. I had also trained as a laboratory technician and did my own crowns and bridges for most of my working life. The results are in the mouths of hundreds of patients, and the restorative work has lasted them more than 30 to 40 years.

I later employed and trained under a consultant orthodontist. We used to work every Saturday for a number of years, working on hundreds of patients, where I honed my orthodontic skills. I was able to provide dental care in all aspects of dentistry, including TMJ treatment.

One day sitting in my office, I started reading a book which some patient had forgotten behind, on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). I came across a list of 44 symptoms, which such patients suffer from. I suddenly remembered a patient I had treated for jaw and orthodontic problems over the previous two years who, I vaguely recollected, had similar symptoms when she first attended for treatment.

I phoned her and we walked through the list. She confirmed that she had actually come to me with about 42 of the 44 symptoms listed, and towards the end of the treatment had recovered from all of them. I had accepted her as a patient for jaw treatment and not her other symptoms. I suddenly had a new insight that perhaps what I was reading in the CFS/ME book was a dentally caused illness - not an elusive syndrome.

To make a long story short, I started looking into it. An osteopath who was also receiving treatment from me, on hearing this story, suddenly referred about 20 such patients whose symptoms he could not manage. I had no choice but to try to treat them. Lucky for them - and me, applying some basic knowledge of Cranio-dental symmetry, I was able to help most of them recover from a multitude of symptoms. These success stories laid the foundations for my newly discovered discipline.

Over the years, I took many courses, not only in orthodontics but other disciplines such as Osteopathy, Kinesiology, Cranial therapy and so on polishing my techniques and eventually realised that the secret to health lay in cranio-dental and bodily symmetries.

While at college, we were taught how to restore the patient to what is known as "Centric Occlusion" which generally means, the lower jaw pushed back, and the teeth occluded into maximal intercuspation whereby both arches meet in what is known orthodontically as a Class I occlusion.

Yet, many patients in this Class I occlusion are extremely unwell with TMJ dysfunction and present with grinding, clenching their teeth and very painful jaw muscles apart from very many other symptoms. The common theme running through these patients is that they have one or more of the following issues contributing to their ill health:

• They have developmentally retrognathic jaws,
• they have had their upper jaws pushed back orthodontically,
• they had extraction orthodontics,
• they have had their wisdom teeth extracted.

When the patients present with TMJ pain, no one attributes their problems to the aforementioned events. Often no treatment is offered and where it is offered it requires that the patient should undertake one or more of these treatments:

• Eat soft foods,
• reduce stress in their life,
• perform jaw exercises,
• undertake physiotherapy,
• take painkillers,
• take muscle relaxants,
• Use a bite guard (with its inherent serious side effects, with patient symptoms ALWAYS worsening as time goes on).

When these treatments inevitably fail, the condition is often assigned to "psychosomatic factors" or "para functions" in need of psychiatric treatment and their bodily pains and serious organic symptoms to "medical problems" in need of medication.

How did all this come about?

Dr. Edward Hartley Angle (June 1, 1855 – August 11, 1930) who was widely regarded as "the father of American orthodontics" had dedicated his life to standardising the teaching and practice of orthodontics. He founded the Angle School of Orthodontia in St. Louis and schools in other regions of the United States.

He came up with some fundamentals of the classification of tooth jaw relationships, which are:

• Both arches apparently meeting correctly (maximal intercuspation). This is called Normal - Class I
• The upper arch too far forward relative to the lower jaw - Class II;
• The lower arch too far forward relative to the upper jaw - Class III.

Superimposed on these principles is the belief that the European face is more evolved, with its flatter profile accomplished by retrognathic jaws. The associated dental crowding is explained away as insufficient alveolar bone to house the teeth in the mouths of this super evolved retrognathic face, and hence the crowding.

This thinking together with Dr Angle's classification gave rise to the concept of "Dento-alveolar disproportion". So the aim has been to reduce the number of teeth to counter the absence of sufficient bone and attain a class I occlusion in maximal intercuspation, no matter where it sits under the cranium and whether it creates or worsens the weight-bearing of the head upon the neck.

Angle described his principals in 1890 - some 130 years ago. Whilst not taking away anything from Angle and continuing to respect his position in the history of dentistry and orthodontics, it is imperative that we upgrade our understanding of occlusion, jaw size and position relative to the cranium and the ramifications of imbalances of the cranium upon our neck.

Angle's classification does not consider the:

• Erroneous belief in the more evolved upright European face,
• environmental and developmental damage, which brings about tooth jaw asymmetries in the first place,
• potential for developing or advancing the retrognathic jaw or both jaws,
• Anteroposterior and lateral planes of the occlusion,
• coronal, transverse and sagittal planes of the dental complex,
• relative placement of the dental complex under the cranium,
• pharyngeal airspace considerations, which may be compromised by retrognathic jaws,
• swallowing patterns of patients which when incorrect cause disharmony in inter-jaw relationships,
• dietary and chewing habits of patients,
• presence of breathing and sinus problems, further damaging the potential for proper jaw development,
• state of the muscles around the head and neck, which may be very tender and stiff because of jaw asymmetries,
• impact of the head imbalance upon the neck vertebrae,
• rotation of the Atlas vertebra, which compensates for anterior maxillary asymmetries,
• widespread implications of cervical vertebral rotations, especially the Atlas,
• widespread implications of compensatory vertebral rotations in the rest of the spine on the neurological, vascular and muscular systems of the body,
• presence of asymmetry of the hips of the patient which, are always out of level in the presence of any head jaw and dental asymmetries,
• collapsed foot arches, which are also attributable to the same asymmetries.

Conventional orthodontic exams are restricted to an examination of the teeth and its immediate surroundings. It needs to be a much fuller evaluation because any change contemplated in the mouth affects all the issues raised in the above list.

Briefly, the spatial symmetry of the dental complex, relative to the skull, is of the utmost importance. It is actually a 3-dimensional craniomandibular harmony and balance, versus just the one-dimensional implication of the word symmetry.

This extensive list may be too farfetched for an orthodontist OR his governing body to understand or accept for reasons that are beyond me, but the implications of fiddling with the dental complex have widespread ramifications involving the whole of the body, and it is imperative that the starting point be properly and fully ascertained and checked regularly throughout the dental/orthodontic/TMJ treatment. This avoids lifelong illness for the patient and protects them from futile outcomes through palliative medical care worsening their condition over time. It also allows a dentist to enable patients to get relief from chronic symptoms for which the patients have not been able to recover previously using almost any other modality of care.

The stark reality of inadequate or ill-understood orthodontic care is apparent in a comment I received today from one of my patients who, after seeing me, visited another orthodontist for a second opinion:

"I'm not sure who you saw in London, but as there is no scientific evidence behind what you have been told. This will mean that you are very likely to undergo a very long, uncomfortable and expensive process that will not work. I would not want that for you and therefore would not want to be involved in any such treatment. There is no evidence that extractions can cause ill effects, and no evidence that orthodontics has any effect on the TMJ. There is also no evidence of any link with ME..."

The orthodontists and general dentists need to become aware of the evidence that extraction orthodontics causes serious TMJ dysfunction, which is present in every mouth that underwent such treatment. In this case, 8 extracted teeth, jaw clicking, limited mouth opening, the deviation on opening, intense pain in muscles all around the head and neck is accepted as normal!

Minute departures from the aforementioned symmetry can lead to some symptoms starting up. It could be as remote as foot pain far away from the mouth. An analogy I often use is that our bodies are as finely tuned as a finely tuned Swiss clock. Any departure from such precision causes a dysfunction. Hundreds of patients have seen a demonstration of this fine link.

The image below shows the basic disturbance in our cranium in terms of rotating cogs. When the lower jaw is pushed back, it causes the temporal bone to rotate forwards while the occipital bone lifts upwards. Concomitantly, the Atlas vertebrae rotates forward further lifting the occiput, which brings about posterior occipital and cerebellar asymmetry.

Furthermore, the blood flow through the vertebral artery, which traverses the Atlas to the cerebellum, diminishes causing numerous symptoms like a loss of fine motor control, tremors and gait dysfunction. This worsens over time as the patient gets older, and the arteries start furring up. Studies with Doppler ultrasound have established this blood perfusion discrepancy, but the neurologists have failed to establish the Atlas-Occipital link affecting cerebellar function. There are studies on this subject, one of which is on this link under “VBI: Vertebro Basilar Insufficiency”.

This picture of the Atlas vertebrae also shows the effects on the vagus nerve, which affects almost all organic functions. Compromised blood flow through the internal carotid artery and the internal jugular vein causes further symptoms. Please read an article under Obstruction of the Internal Jugular veins & Atlas Asymmetry on this forum.

Gross mishandling of orthodontics and other oral procedures starts a chain reaction resulting in a huge number of symptoms in patients. One of the most disturbing symptoms I have seen in "Multiple Sclerosis" patients is a full body violent tremor which does not stop. Patients cannot be held still, even by two people. These tremors stop instantly on the correct positioning of the jaws, despite the patients having been told that the cause is permanent neurological damage through the "demyelination process" by their neurologists.

1.The hypoglossal nerve: The anterior rotation of the Atlas vertebrae also slightly misshapes the foramen magnum, from which the hypoglossal nerve emanates. This starts affecting the tongue, causing swallowing problems and subsequently dental abnormalities which perpetuate further asymmetries in the occlusal balance. It also affects speech. Many patients with Ataxic gait also develop speech problems.

2. The Vagus and the Cervical Sympathetic chain: The effects of asymmetry here can affect the function of many organs in the body, leading to digestive and blood pressure problems.

3. The Phrenic nerve: This nerve supplies the diaphragm. Disturbances here can lead to a reduced breathing capacity. After Atlas correction, we have seen an immediate improvement in the patient's breathing capacity in most cases, which is a phenomenal finding.

As a matter of caution, repeated high-velocity adjustments are extremely detrimental to the neck. Only palliative massage of the neck muscles is an acceptable symptomatic alternative treatment. Experience shows that the primary cause is in the mouth and the secondary lesion is in the neck. The primary needs treatment. The secondary takes care of itself.

A patient reporting that she has completely recovered from her terrible neck pains also adds:
"I have met such a wide range of patients with such various problems in the waiting room, and it is extraordinary that a simple adjustment of the position of the jaw can have such a dramatic effect on the function of the whole body. I am a witness to the efficacy of your programme and have recommended you countless times to friends and acquaintances with chronic problems."

A slight deviation from perfect symmetry affects our bodies like a badly balanced car tire, which eventually shows wear on one edge needing replacement - synonymous to one needing a hip replacement at age 70!

The graphs below are a record of a patient who was previously described as possibly suffering from ME or CFS or FM or MS by various medical consultants. Tens of thousands had previously been spent on medical care with absolutely no resolution and the patient had got rapidly bed bound.

She was an Angles' Class II and two of her upper premolar teeth had previously been extracted to drag her upper teeth and jaw back to meet a smaller lower jaw! This created a serious imbalance of the head on the neck, which started reacting, causing pain and numerous spiralling symptoms throughout the body. The patient recovered completely and went on to get a first-class maths degree at University. She was previously bedridden. Again, I must emphasise that these patients can only be helped through dentistry.

The existing oversight of medicine and dentistry is actually preventing proper patient care and perpetuating disease and bankruptcy upon the whole of society. The remit of the triad of the medical council, dental council, and the medical defence establishments needs considerable revision through urgent government intervention if it really wants to care for the public and prevent wholesale looting of resources under cover of the NHS.

This article has, I believe, the quintessential explanation for the occurrence of very many symptoms in patients. Attending to the asymmetries soon starts resolving most of the symptoms.

Here are the experiences of some other recent patients:

From: S M
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2018, 19:01
Subject: Jaw issues

"Dear Dr Amir,
I am a very fed up person. I have been sent round & round the mulberry bush for 20 years following an extraction. In the last year, however, the pain has gotten really bad, and I have pain all along the right side of my body at every joint. I went to a private Harley St dr who and for the first time experienced being treated like I was a human! Below is my OPG. He thinks it looks like my jaw is very much dislocated, and he had never seen anything like it. I have been telling GPs dentists, max fax people for years I am having difficulty speaking, eating & it feels as if my face is moving to the left. Nobody listened till now. However, I had to then be referred back to the NHS, as the specialist treatment was too expensive. They again fobbed me off etc."

Just received this from Belgium:
Sent: Saturday, February 2, 2019 15:53
Subject: Request appointment (coming from abroad)

"Dear Dr Amir,
My name is L........, I am 32, and I live in Belgium.

I am writing to you because I found your website through a community of people with TMJ dysfunctions. I have been having many of the symptoms listed on your website, and the things are getting worse every year. The doctors keep telling me it is my anxiety, and they do not even bother to try to find the real causes. I have had a lot of work in my mouth, ...................."

Bringing about symmetry in the front of the mouth aligns the Atlas vertebra. The Atlas vertebra occupies a unique place in the recent history of treatments of skeletal asymmetries. AtlasPROfilax® is a Swiss technique developed by Monsignor Rene Schumperlii that uses strategic and precisely targeted mechanical vibrations and pressure to the short muscles – sub occipital muscles – of the neck. In this way, the atlas is allowed to embed correctly in the condylar facets of the occiput.

A German MRI and 3D CAT scan investigations have shown that 98 percent of a healthy, modern population sample had atlas mal-rotation and that the AtlasPROfilax® procedure was corrective for this condition.

In another study of 350 patients using an iliac crest, inclinometer indicated that the AtlasPROfilax procedure corrects pelvic misalignment and functional leg length discrepancy. It immediately corrects the short leg phenomenon. This would abate back pain, hip pains, sciatic nerve pains, numbness etc for most of the patients.

However, correcting the Atlas does not correct the discrepancy in the mouth, which is a counterbalance for the Atlas rotation and vice versa. The Atlas soon goes out of synch again in most cases. Correcting the teeth, helps correct the Atlas, which it does automatically as the symmetry in the front of the mouth improves. The required change in the jaw is often much greater and needs long-term treatment, while attempts to correct the Atlas alone does not hold in the presence of most dental asymmetries.

Another patients' husband writes:
"Last week when we were there, Dr Amir had some 4th stage appliances to fit. As soon as they were fitted, my wife could suddenly raise her arms. She could barely lift her hands an inch before that. She was also able to lift both her legs a couple of inches. This was startling. I ran to the waiting room to get my friend to come in and see this miracle.

During that night, I felt my wife pulling me towards her, telling me that she is getting feeling back in her body. Her legs started moving. I was flabbergasted and phoned my son at 2.00 AM to come over and see movement in his mothers' arms and legs for the first time in 8 years!"

The body is built to gain symmetry all the time. The brain and other reflex mechanisms built into our neurology do not like the vertebral misalignment in the neck and contract various muscles to straighten the vertebrae and the head. Since the damage is permanent, the messages to the muscles to contract are endless. Fatigue and pain set in. Over a long period, the discs bulge, spurs grow, nerves, veins, arteries are constricted and a whole host of problems like chronic neck pain and a frozen shoulder etc. develop.

THESE ARE SIMPLER PROBLEMS. Problems that are more serious develop if left untreated. These can include Spinal stenosis, Chiara malformations, Cranio-cervical Instability with Atlanto-axial Instability (CCI/AAI) resulting in a 'sinking head' causing brainstem compression with its severe ramifications in terms of erratic heart rate, extreme dizziness, extreme breathing difficulty, and often complete paralysis.

Please note that the effect of occlusal irregularities on hip inclination is present almost a 100% of the time and thus cannot be ignored by the dentist.

In other words, a slight distortion in the mouth, caused developmentally or iatrogenically, starts affecting the lower back and hips of the patient. Should the patient be sent to the medics, orthopaedic surgeons, chiropractors or the dentist should be responsible for the calamity visited upon the patient?

To establish the hip distortion the dentist has to check the hip level - an anathema for your dental governing body who might strike you off for treating a medical condition but this is not a medical condition. The dentist is the only one who can adequately treat the patient.

Dr. Mercola says:
"There is evidence that many standard treatments for back pain — surgery, spinal injections, and painkillers — are often ineffective and can even worsen and prolong the problem... Some research suggests that 1 in 5 patients who have surgery for back pain end up having more surgery.

An estimated 80 per cent of Americans will suffer from chronic back pain at some point in life. Some 25-30 per cent end up struggling with persistent or chronic back pain, leading many to resort to prescription painkillers, expensive steroid shots, or even multiple surgeries.

Recent data shows that back pain is increasingly being treated with addictive drugs and diagnostic exams that expose patients to potentially unnecessary and dangerous levels of radiation. These treatments do not cure back pain—they only treat your symptoms."

I hope you as a patient have a better perspective and will be able to get better care from your dentist or orthodontist in the future with your acquired knowledge through this article.

© 2024 M. Amir All rights reserved
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ABOUT: Dr Amir’s dedication to promoting an alternative approach to dental and medical care, focusing on prevention over intervention, has not come without significant personal cost. Taking a stance against mainstream practices which contribute to ill health has put him at odds with powerful vested interests in the medical and dental fields. Dr Amir's work has led to groundbreaking achievements, with 48 identified illnesses which can potentially be treated through dental interventions. Despite facing funding challenges, Dr Amir's resolve remains undeterred. This site aims to highlight those issues and promote an alternative approach, to change current dental and medical practice paradigms. To help Dr Amir continue his work and maintain his practice, he invites contributions, no matter how small. Please donate through a window that comes up after a few seconds at dramir.com.

THANK YOU, NOTE: A sincere note of thanks to all who have made generous contributions so far. Your support is greatly appreciated and helps Dr Amir to continue his mission of creating healthier and safer dental and medical practices around the world.

DISCLAIMER: All information provided on this website is purely for educational purposes and based on personal experiences. Before acting on any information presented on this site, it is highly advised that individuals consult their doctor or healthcare provider. The suggested treatments and interventions may not be suitable for everyone, and the site is not meant to replace professional advice. Your health care provider should be consulted to make sure that a suggested treatment or intervention is right for your specific health circumstances.