At Designer Dental, we first take steps to alleviate your pain by helping the muscles of your jaw relax. We use a TENS unit. TENS stands for transcutaneous electrical neural stimulation. The TENS unit gently massages the muscles of your jaw with rhythmic pulses that increase blood flow and pump out waste products, like lactic acid. This is very similar to getting a massage after you’ve worked out too hard and your muscles are sore. The pain is caused by a buildup of lactic acid and the massage helps release it from your muscles. Both massage for your body and the use of the TENS unit for your jaw also helps release endorphins, the body’s own natural anesthetic.

We also need to take steps to realign your jaw to its natural position. We can prepare a custom-fitted orthotic device, that is worn over your teeth. This allows the Dr Duval to make adjustments to your bite before moving the teeth.

We have several techniques we can use to reposition your teeth and your bite and we’ll discuss which ones are best for you before beginning any treatment plan.

One method is called coronoplasty or equilibration. This is a simple procedure where we smooth and reshape the enamel of your teeth to make minor adjustments in your bite. Sometimes this is all that’s needed. Best of all, it requires no anesthesia!

Other cases of TMJ require more significant adjustment and reconstruction of the mouth. If there are missing teeth, or the teeth are severely out of alignment, we use crowns or veneers to either replace teeth, or to fit over existing teeth to change your bite.

But fixing your jaw and your bit too quickly through dental restoration could create as many problems as it attempts to solve. When your jaw is severely out of alignment, you could experience significant pain if it’s put into place too quickly. It needs to be done in stages to give your teeth and the muscles of your jaw and face time to adjust.

In cases like this, we make use of either a fixed or removable orthotic to train the muscles into place before we make permanent changes with crowns or veneers. A removable orthotic is one that you can remove to clean and have adjusted periodically. A fixed orthotic is lightly bonded to your teeth and can be removed only by the dentist.

If you require dentures to replace teeth, we fit you with neuromuscular dentures. These are superior to conventional dentures because of the extent to which they are custom-fit to ensure maximum comfort for you.