Peter Coe: Would be the problem I had. Interestingly enough my wife did a lot of research and she came upon TMJ online and said I think this is what you have, I think you have this. As I lay in bed, she brought her laptop over to me and we read those symptoms. She got online and found Dr. Dawne’s website.
It just so happened that Dr. Dawne is my child’s dentist. We set up an appointment and to be very frank I was quite skeptical, nothing I had done in the past really amounted to any kind of relief for me. She put me through listening to my jaw getting rotating x-rays, since there is work to really see and determine whether she can help me or not and that was probably the most interesting thing to me was there was no guarantees that this is what I had.
She really investigated to see if she could help me if this was not happening where most people I had gone to immediately assumed they could help me and that whatever I had they could cure it with a quick pill. That wasn’t the case here and we did discover I had some problems in the alignment of my jaw and where my teeth were sitting here she took a couple of tongue depressors and slowly put them in my mouth and after I did that I felt relief. Not complete relief but I felt the change immediately and we are onto something.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Well, instead of having a walk around -- mouth we make a very specific appliance that he wears on his lower or just going to lock up or retainer we call it an orthotic or splint that repositions his jaw in a position that allows for healing, allows for the nerves and blood vessels in the back of the jaw joint to heal and not be compressed and causing all the headaches and neck aches that he was having. So, now he is progressed through orthodontics and through orthodontics we are putting his teeth in a position that that appliance put his jaw and so that he has a permanent solution.
Peter Coe: The fabulous part here is that I have a solution and we have started moving my teeth, my appliance that I wears getting smaller and smaller so I am seeing progress in that and its physical ness but in myself i don’t have headaches anymore, I don’t have stomach problems anymore, I don’t have sleeping problems anymore. In fact I am probably the most physically fit I have been in 20 years. The interesting thing is also is that I am not on paying that. I have been on paying wedge, sense a week after I started and we really can’t argue with results.
Mike Wiegenstein: Hi Dr. Slabach now as we have talked to your patients today and we continue to go through this stuff, keep coming back to diagnostics and technology the one I talked you on phone. You repeatedly talked about being able to diagnose people to find out what they really had and I thought that was strange because I thought every doctor did that. After talking to your patients today I have certainly realized may be that isn’t true. So, tell me a little bit about how big the oral technology plays in your practice and of course tell me a little bit about this.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: While technology plays the huge role because we -- at this point. We are dealing with jaw joint issues, sleep issues, we are not just looking at a tooth in the mouth, waiting to see what’s going on in the whole head and neck region and yet we don’t want to be poking and prodding in the mouth, in muscles and joints what have you. So, this gives us a three dimensional view with various x-rays that we take.
Mike Wiegenstein: And this is what that causes
Dr. Dawne Slabach: This is a panoramic CMT, complex motion tomography. We take about eight different films on here, several areas of the jaw joint, and a couple of different skull views we take a view of the cervical spine because we are looking.
Mike Wiegenstein: All with this machine.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: All with this machine and all in a very low to the short period of time.
Mike Wiegenstein: Okay and that allows you to diagnose on a variety of surgeries. I don’t see where I mean these in offices. So, if I was to get treated for something sleep, jaw joint possibly just be something I want to make sure somebody had.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Absolutely, absolutely. We can’t extend our dental x-ray, dental panoramic x-ray doesn’t show if diagnostically what’s going on in the skull and the jaw joint, head, neck region at all.
Mike Wiegenstein: Well, because one of your patients today said that they have been to a he wasn’t a dentist, he was another form of doctor or you knows into a doctor who basically looked him and said that they were going to try to him on a points like you make that. They hadn’t done very many but they were going to try. Is it can anybody really make an point, how really important is the diagnostic part of the whole thing.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Well, anybody can make an appliance by your guessing on job position, you are guessing on what’s going on in the jaw joint, you are guessing on what’s going on in the bones and the skull and the neck and what I need to do is I need to make sure that I am going to be putting somebody’s head neck the muscles in balance, and I need to be able to see beyond the skin beyond the tooth.
Mike Wiegenstein: This is -- with this question but what are you, talk about your, do you think being a female makes you more I don’t know, but moms always want to make sure they know everything that’s wrong dad’s just makes a decision. Do you think that being a female helps you listen and to learn more, that drive you towards this diagnostic cardio practice.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Yes, I think being a female I do tend to listen more. I am a mom and I do think that I do listen a lot. I listen to what my patients say they have adequate opportunity for as many hours as they want.
Sussie Braton: So, I teach Dr. Dawne’s daughters and we are at the studio one day and I was complaining about pain in my jaw and she says you have TMJ then I said no I have pain in my jaw and this hurts in the -- she said come and see me. I have never heard of it before so I came to the office and she did some x-rays and she said absolutely that’s what it is. So, she made the appliance for me and just like that the headaches that I was having was gone, the pain in the jaw was gone, because I was so out of alignment that the appliance provide all back in and its been the god sent.
Mike Wiegenstein: Okay, you are going to show me what a JVA actually is and how it works.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Yes, I have got -- for joint vibration analysis also called JVA for short. We know that joints that are functioning smoothly should not make vibrations so that make any noise, be any -- nice and smooth. This technology is similar to seismograph that measures vibrations of the earth during and before an earth quake, same kind of technology here.
Mike Wiegenstein: So, the joints should make, there should be no vibration.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Right absolutely.
Mike Wiegenstein: Alright show me show me on his
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Okay, these are microphones sitting on this jaw joints and David I am going to ask you to open and close rhythmically, I will say open and close down to your --. If you feel any clicking popping in your joints I want you to make sure that the computer hears that, don’t stop short of that.
David: Okay.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Open close open close open close open close great super
Mike Wiegenstein: And that’s pretty much you are listening four vibrations.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: The computers. When Lisa first came to me she had a husband with her, big doubting husbands was that I call them and she was doubting as well, by the time she had been to all these doctors she was like she told anything help. Lisa had you know a malpositioned jaw, she had compression of blood vessels in there, its in the back of the jaw joint that was causing her headache, neck ache, shoulder pain and we took it through all of our normal diagnostic procedures to -- diagnosis but she doesn’t have TMJ disorder.
Lisa Sain: It wasn’t an immediate change. In fact she told me you will hate me for the first few weeks because when you position the jaw in a neutral position your muscles are so tight, they have to learn to relax and go back to that position but after that first few weeks I had a significant improvement and has continued to improve, I am about 70-75% better than when I first came to see her. Let me put that in perspective; reflect 25-30 days of headaches a month when I first came to see her. After right now and the position I am now heaven, I have got my life back and its continuing to improve.
Mike Wiegenstein: Alright, now, you also treat sleep.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: Yeah.
Mike Wiegenstein: You said a lot of times TMJ have sleep problems. What you used to diagnose breathing problems with people.
Dr. Dawne Slabach: We have the technology called the -- okay, acoustic reflection similar to a fish finder only we are not looking for fish we are sending sound ways through the air way having them --
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services