#123 Why I Chose to Treat TMD/TMJ Rather than Retire

Everyone should have a purpose in life.  Each of us is entitled to choose our purpose.  What is a purpose for one can become a burden for another.  I bet you can think of many examples of this and how that can happen.  

As a child I was very bored.  Looking back, I had an idyllic childhood.  Lots of friends and family activities and support.  Yet I always felt I needed to do something exciting and meaningful.  I longed to have a life filled with purpose.  I prayed that my life would be filled with challenges, excitement, and success. 

I’m fortunate that my job performed for the past 50 years as an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon answered my prayers.  Surgery is a very challenging and exciting field.  It’s never the same and you never get bored doing it.  Just like piloting an aircraft, for which I also have 50 years’ experience, you are captain of the ship, and by necessity must take full responsibility for bringing the aircraft or surgical procedure in for a successful landing, (conclusion).   

Most of my career in the operating room was spent doing thousands of major types of facial reconstruction including over 2000 surgical procedures on the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), attempting to solve the devastating symptoms associated with TMD (Temporomandibular Joint Disorder) surgically.  When reconstructing a cleft palate, facial growth anomaly, traumatic injury, or nerve damage I was always able to predict the outcome.  However, no matter which surgical procedure I used on the temporomandibular joint, and no matter how carefully the technology was applied, 30% to 40% of the TMD/TMD patients would be back in my office within a year or two with complaints of the original symptoms.  I could only predict the outcome for TMJ surgery 60% of the time. Fourteen years ago, I decided that the surgical outcomes for temporomandibular joint surgery were not predictable enough to warrant the surgery.  I could not look my TMD patient in the eye and tell them I was going to fix their problem knowing that 30% to 40% of the time they would be back with similar symptoms within a year or two. That is when I decided to try and find out why nobody had a predictable solution for the disparate symptoms of this devastating disease.   

Ultimately and fortunately, I discovered the common denominator which cause the symptoms followed by creating a simple solution that relieves the common denominator.  For the past 10 years I and my team have brought this predictable solution to as many of the 76 million people with TMD/TMJ throughout the United states as possible.  So far, we have only scratched the surface of the patients in need.  Our single practice in Brentwood, although very busy, cannot serve but a fraction of those in Middle Tennessee who suffer the consequences, and constant misdiagnoses by the medical profession, of frequent and recurrent headaches, earaches, neck pan, jaw pain, tinnitus, subjective hearing loss, vertigo, upper back and shoulder pain, arm/hand/finger tingling and numbness, and various types of jaw locking. In addition to our own practice, our device and protocol is now used by a growing number of doctors in 18 states 

Most Americans look forward to the day when they no longer must show up to their job every morning.  They hope to have saved enough money, and with the help of social security, to live out their remaining years doing exactly what they want to do without directives and external controls fulfilling their hobbies and personal interests.  Looking back at the last 50 years I acknowledge I have fulfilled my purpose by helping others and solving problems.  I am fulling my purpose and doing exactly what I want to do.  Every morning, I get out of bed looking forward to helping people in need and solving their problems. 

The problem of TMD/TMJ has been solved and now I’m committed to the mission of bringing the solution to as many as possible who need and want the service. 

Our company that teaches other doctors to use our device and protocol is named TMJ Services, and practice TMJ Services of Brentwood.  

I and my team look forward to helping you.