KST A to Z
TMJ pain from tooth straightening
John Foley, DC
Bellmawr, New Jersey
A 16-year-old with severe TMJ pain had a dental appliance, braces, etc., and past manual adjustments of TMJ and Cottam cranial work. Temporary improvement.
The oral surgeon wants to do surgery, but I begged the parents to get a second opinion. The University of Pennsylvania Clinic recommended no surgery; he was too young and to wait for full development.
It’s now four years later. She is a student at Rutgers University and diagnosed with bilateral disc displacement with aberrant motion. This time I adjusted her with KST: mandible, TMJ disc, temporal, maxilla, frontal, sphenoid, occiput and C1 in October 2005. One time.
She came home from college in November 2005; she reported major improvement. Home from college December 2005: no symptoms, adjustment holding, patient reports only occasional tightness in TMJ.
She reports her lower front tooth has slightly shifted posterior. She said to me, "You fixed my jaw problem that was caused by a dentist straightening my teeth."
These stories are practitioner-reported experiences presented for educational and historical purposes. Individual experiences vary. They are not medical advice, do not establish that KST treats or cures any disease, and should not be used as a reason to delay appropriate or emergency care or independently discontinue prescribed medication.