Neuromuscular Pain and Rehabilitation

More Dental Health Articles

Neuromuscular Pain and Rehabilitation

There is nothing more life changing than living with pain. It changes your mood, destroys relationships, causes depression, and immobilizes you physically and emotionally. I have seen patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia, or other neural based diseases, headaches, migraines, face, neck and ear pain. Some of my patients suffer from ringing in ears or tingling down their arms and legs. The search to be normal becomes a way of life driven by the misery of their pained existence.

In order to understand better, let’s go back to basic human anatomy and physiology and discuss pain free function. You need a balanced skeletal frame covered with muscles and nerves that are in total balanced harmony. You need proper sleep for repair and hormonal balance. You need a system that properly oxygenates for energy and overall health. Where there is compromise, eventually there will be pain and degeneration.

Think of it this way. You can travel at top speed when the highway is unencumbered. But damage and road blocks make it impassable. The neural pathways are like superhighways. They need to be free of skeletal impingements and misalignments that cause pain and compromised motion. When the neural pathways become blocked there is a slowing of the brains transmissions and once healthy bodily functions become distorted causing break down and producing pain.

Now think of a marionette. Each string that moves a limb or body part can’t keep the doll’s formation straight if the lines get knotted and the doll cannot move properly. The knots of the strings can be equated with the shortening of muscles of the body. A tug-of-war is set up and the body becomes compromised.

An often overlooked, yet truly vital part of your overall health is the anatomy and shape of your mouth and tongue, and your airway and the affects of the surrounding structures. The way your teeth come together supports your jaw joints in front of your ears.

It will protect or compress and impinge the neural and vascular structures that can affect balance and ringing in your ears, and radiate pain to the surrounding areas including your head, neck, shoulders and throughout your entire body. It can cause compression in your upper spine as well.

Sleep and breathing disorders can disrupt the vital repair your body needs. Your hormonal function is compromised, and a whole host of problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, weight gain, and increased risk of stroke. A person with sleep apnea has a heightened sensitivity all over. So evaluating these issues is really important for a pain patient.

Is neuromuscular dentistry a panacea or a miracle cure? Of course not, but it can assist your doctor in getting better pain relieving results. It can help you to regain what your pain has taken away.