Understanding Chronic Inflammation is Critical to Understanding TMD

TMD, (Temporomandibular Joint Disorder) is a disease that has been misunderstood by the dental and medical communities for decades.  The problem has been created because TMD presents the doctors with a variety of disparate and confusing symptoms.  When a doctor, especially a physician, is faced with a patient who states they have frequent headaches that are also associated with ear pain and tingling of the arms and fingers, along with a feeling that their ears are full of water and they can’t hear as well in one ear as the other, the doctor doesn’t know what to make it.  Compound the problem with the patient stating that the painful headaches move around from one side to the other, or that the ear is painful even though the doctor can find nothing wrong with the ear or head after extensive work up including all sorts of blood tests, x-rays, MRI’s, CT Scans and physical examination.  The doctor may call the patient crazy and that these symptoms make no sense.  This scenario is very common. 

For 70 years, the problem has flourished because no one has identified a central factor or unifying concept that explains all these confusing symptoms until recently. 

The common denominator that, when present, explains all the disparate symptoms is chronic inflammation within the Temporomandibular Joint, (TMJ).  The problem has been that all the doctors and dentists have tried to explain all the symptoms as separate entities which have limited their attention, treatment, and research on each symptom rather than looking for the unifying cause.  This is surprising because inflammation is taught as the primary unifying concept associated with just about all disease processes and traumatic events.  Inflammation is the body’s response to damage whether it is caused by bacteria, virus, or trauma.  Inflammation is the bodies’ exquisite attempt to heal itself when damaged.  When unsuccessful, the inflammation changes characteristics to become what is called chronic inflammation generating different reactions and cell types compared to the initial inflammation.  Chronic inflammation, when left unchecked can damage surrounding tissues and issue warnings to other organs of the body through the nervous and endocrine systems that there is unusual problems with healing. 

In the case of chronic inflammation within the TMJ, an attempt is made to hold the TMJ motionless to enhance healing.  This is accomplished through the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, (ANS).   When the muscles receive the signals to hold the jaw motionless, the muscles contract and place undue traction on the coverings or the bones throughout the head and face stimulating the pain receptors located within the periosteum which covers the bone.  These pain receptors then send nerve signals back to the brain and are perceived by the person as pain wherever the muscles are attached.  The signals from the brain asking the muscles of the jaws to hold the joint motionless do not always arrive at the same muscles at the same times or in the same way.  The nerve signals can move around the face and therefore the pain perceived can move around the face.  When holding the jaw motionless is not effective in reversing the chronic inflammation, additional nerve signals are sent out to hold the entire head motionless and eventually the entire shoulder girdle motionless creating neck and upper back and shoulder pain and tightness.  The pains move around as the signals move around from jaw to neck to shoulder and from one side to the other. 

The non-painful symptoms of tinnitus (ringing in the ears), subjective hearing loss, and vertigo) are created by the chronic inflammatory fluid entering the middle ear through a 2 mm fissure in the bone which connects the jaw joint to the structures within the middle ear that control hearing and balance. 

So, it is chronic inflammation within the TMJ that creates the various disparate symptoms of TMD.  Once you understand the mechanism that creates the symptoms, you don’t have to treat the symptoms any longer, you just treat the cause of the symptoms.  The best way to do that is to unload the TMJ like a set of crutches unloading a damaged knee.  When you unload a damaged joint, the chronic inflammation naturally dissipates and the symptoms disappear. 

Understanding Chronic inflammation is critical to understanding the proper solution for TMD.   

The patented, FDA cleared Urbanek Device and Protocol is now used under license by doctors in 20 states.  Dr. Urbanek and staff at his founding practice in Franklin, Tennessee are dedicated to the resolution of the devastating symptoms of TMD without drugs, complicated, intrusive, and recurrent therapy and surgery. He is pleased that this scientific breakthrough is now available throughout the United States to the thousands of patients who suffer from TMD.