What does the timing of the bite have to do with TMD?
The longer the amount of time that our back teeth engage with one another as we chew, clench, or grind, the more likely our nervous system will push the muscles that move things around harder than normal; in appropriate patients whose TMJs are found to not be orthopedically unstable and maladapted. The harder those muscles work, the more likely these muscles become fatigued and ischemic. Ischemic muscles hurt. Getting on our front teeth quickly as we chew around is a good and healthy thing. Conversely, if we cannot get on our front teeth quickly because we are hung up on our back teeth for some reason, that is a bad thing. Shorten the time that opposing back teeth engage with one another, in time, and our nervous system will statistically push the muscles less to accomplish the same tasks. This new muscular efficiency gives previously overworked muscles a chance to rest, recover, lose their ischemia, and subsequently the patient should lose their pain, if the ischemia was the only layer responsible for their pain (which it typically is). Most patients with TMD have a problem due to overworked muscles of mastication/chewing. The key lies in understanding why these muscles are overworked in the first place… This is why the CNO understands the importance of the following phrase: Measured Matters. Using precise and objective tools to measure and potentially alter the timing of the bite is a new and unknown concept in both mainstream medicine and dental medicine. DTR and MAGD therapy can readily create a newfound and instantaneous muscular efficiency, confirmed via the simultaneous usage of muscle electromyography (EMG) to prove that this newfound muscular efficiency now exists, during treatment. Computerized bite adjustment therapy is profoundly and amazingly effective, when used for the right patients!