Hi Everyone and welcome or welcome back to my YouTube channel. Today's video is about
headaches and Temporomandibular Disorder (TMD). Are you struggling with headaches? Are you
looking for relief that doesn't require taking medication after medication? Do headaches
affect the quality of your everyday life? If so, and if you watch this video until the
end, you'll learn more about headaches and you'll learn how we manage them at my office
without having to use medication and with a very high success rate. For those of you
who I don't know, my name is Priya Mistry and I'm a General Dentist with a practice
dedicated to taking care of patients with TMJ problems. My practice is in beautiful
Portland, Oregon and I recently started my Instagram page, if you could check that out.
The handle is right here. So let's just get right into it. TMD - which is Temporomandibular
Disorder or Dysfunction - it recognizes that there's a group of muscles that work together
to guide and support the jaw. If or when these muscles become dysfunctional - usually due
to chronic clenching, chronic grinding, even simply the way our teeth fit together- it
can lead to a variety of symptoms. And that's why TMD is often called "the Great Impostor
Disease". The number one symptom that we find that it leads to is actually headaches, closely
followed by ear or neck related concerns, and jaw pain. In today's video, we're going
to focus on headaches as I recently did a video on ear-related concerns so if you're
having any of those, go ahead and check that video out as well. What really is a headache?
There are so many different kinds of headaches: tension headaches, cluster headaches, migraine
headaches, hormone headaches, ice pick headaches. So many different kinds and truly - doctors
don't know the exact cause of headaches. What we DO know is that ALL headaches - regardless
of type - are mediated by the Fifth Cranial Nerve. This is called the Trigeminal Nerve.
Most research indicates that the pain from a headache comes from a mixture of signals
between our brains, our blood vessels, and nearby nerves. Very specific nerves around
our blood vessels and around the muscles in our head, neck, and jaw then turn on! And
this signals pain to our brains; so our brain receives these pain signals. What is not entirely
clear is how these pain signals get turned on in the first place. We believe that the
pain signals get turned on due to muscle dysfunction. At our office, the number one reason people
walk through our front door is headaches, and we are able to drastically reduce them
within a month of treatment! We believe that dysfunctional muscles - so muscles that are
swollen, muscles that are inflamed - then go on to put pressure on the nerves that surround
them and this pressure is what contributes heavily to headaches. Typically people that
suffer from chronic headaches also have other issues that are related to muscle dysfunction
- such as neck pain, or jaw pain, or really worn down teeth from chronic clenching or
grinding, or postural imbalances from the jaw all the way down to the feet. It's so
important to look at the entire body when treating headaches! What we do at our office,
is we focus on neuromuscular treatment. Neuro=nerves, Muscular=muscles. We build custom-made mouthpieces
that actually put the jaw, and the muscles that surround and support the jaw, in their
most relaxed position when the orthotics are worn. And when we do that, very good things
tend to happen. When the muscles become less inflamed and less swollen by wearing these
orthotics, the pressure is then taken off of the nerves and the headaches are decreased
drastically. We believe that lowering the threshold of excitation of the Fifth Cranial
Nerve - again, the Trigeminal Nerve - by putting the muscles in their most relaxed position
is what contributes to our treatment being so successful and that drastic decrease in
headaches that we see. And we see that decrease in headaches in all types of headaches - from
cluster and tension headaches to the dreaded migraine headache. We also do imaging of the
upper cervical vertebrae. Rotations in these vertebrae can contributes to headaches as
well, particularly C1 - which is called Atlas. For adjusting the Atlas, if we believe that's
playing a role, we enlist our trusted NUCCA Chiropractors. NUCCA stands for National Upper
Cervical Chiropractic Association. When we work with them, the NUCCA Chiropractors adjustments
and our orthotics work very well together. I've done an entire video on NUCCA Chiropractors
and you can check this out on my channel. So with the methods I've talked about in this
video, we've had great success in taking care of our patients with headaches - all types
of headaches. And we can usually get a drastic decrease in headaches and a lot of relief
within a month of treatment, so that's pretty amazing for these patients that have been
suffering a long time. So if you liked what you've heard or if you've learned something,
click "Like" below, SUBSCRIBE to my channel, do all the things. And as always, I'm happy
to answer questions so please comment or question in the comment box below. And remember - you
can never have TMI about TMJ!