Description
Dr. Bixby helps patients find relief from TMJ disorder. If you have jaw pain or your jaw clicks and pops, Dr. Bixby can examine your bite and develop a treatment plan. Addressing TMJ disorder can greatly improve your comfort.
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So a typical TMJ patient is one who has some type of dysfunction in the way that their muscles or their jaw or their teeth interact with each other. And typically, there's a pain or a click or a pop associated with that. And it can be mild, and it can be very severe. In our office, we try to look at the body as the whole of those three things. And, you know, we try to find what is the position of where the jaw wants to be. Where are the muscles? Where are they happy? And how do the teeth interact with that? And if we can kind of come up with a plan that would incorporate all those things, patients tend to do very well.
In TMJ treatment, there are different therapies. We typically try, in the phase one, try to find a position that they're comfortable with. And try to allow for the joint to heal itself. A lot of times, there's been a lot of pressure and compression in the disc area. So if we can get some of that pressure off, and allow for that healing, we can move on to the next steps.
Every patient is different as far as the treatment time. We typically try to help them find a comfortable position and allow for healing. It can be within a couple of days. It can be a few months. Everybody's ability in their healing time is a little bit. And we are very attuned to those minor changes that we try to adjust as that moves along in the right direction.
A typical patient for a TMJ patient is, you know, they come in with some type of pain or complaint. And, you know, going through the process of trying to help them find a more functional position and allowing them to be in that position, they typically feel much better.