by James Jecmen

INTRODUCTION:

This paper is based on years of clinical and extra-clinical research and case presentations, including both live demonstrations and case treatments recorded on slides, starting with the presentation at Wimpole street in 1995 through the evolution of the now current study group of craniofacial orthopedics and related body and dental paradigms in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Everything in this paper is demonstrated during these meetings and can be validated by the members of that group.  The study group is administered by Huw Martin-Jones and taught by myself and other group members.

THE PROBLEM:

In trying to understand the root of a problem it is often necessary to start with an open mind, to go beyond the obvious, to search areas seemingly unrelated, to leave convention behind and even to return to first principles and start again.  The study group in Edinburgh, Scotland does just that.  We have tried to find the cause of malocclusion and in so doing offer opportunities previously unavailable in an attempt to provide solutions that are tailored to each person’s individual needs.  We are looking for the seeds (origins) of malocclusion in order to provide the most appropriate treatment of the individual   entrusting their health and well being to us (not to mention straight teeth, normal TMJ function, headache free, and etc.).  This paper will attempt to give an insight as to how we operate.

There have been many theories of malocclusion, how to view it, how to treat it, extract teeth, don’t extract, expand arches, use headgears, the use of plastic appliances of every description, study posture, adjust bodies, and so on.  The field is filled with experts, opinions abound, camps defend, debates continue, and so on.  Some professional groups even go so far as to offer the myopic and insidious position that occlusion and TMJ dysfunction are mutually exclusive, and are unrelated to one another.  Not a single dentist I have spoken with nor anyone in the group who has had the same conversation accepts that position.    Of all the positions that abound in treating orthopaedic and orthodontic problems, few look beyond their own training and experience for the real cause and effects.

In our group we often wonder aloud why professionals spend so much time defending their own turf.  Is there not enough work to go around?  Isn’t the reason we are in business to serve the public in their own best interest, provide the same level of care we would for our own family, try to tailor the treatment to the problem, learn more about our own opportunities to increase our own level of knowledge and in turn provide more physiologically correct and comprehensive treatment, always seeking to improve our methods of delivery and up the standards of care?  Why would one need to “dig in”, defend ones position as the only one, exclude new knowledge, sell only what one has in his bag of tricks versus tailor a program to the optimal patient health?  Why exclude other modalities and new information (like the book burnings in Europe where people in power wanted the public to see only one point of view), or steamroller those who do not “see it our way?”  Just because one or more persons say it cannot be done does not mean it cannot be done.  Sometimes we just need to see it from a different perspective.  Columbus did not fall off the edge of the earth even though “everyone knew it was flat.”

John Mew asked at a recent meeting of the craniomandibular society in London how do I meet the opposition and convince them that there are other valid points of view?  I asked that same question years ago.  I asked a dentist I respected how do I address those who would see life from no other view than their own?  He said (and I modified) that if we only concentrate on providing the best care we can for the patient, keep it our life’s work and our obligation to the universe (God as I see it), keep learning and looking for the best new ideas and apply them to our patients with their best interest in mind, then the gold standard can only change and improve.  Those who chose to argue their position as the only position will fall behind and the public will either discard them or force them to update…like newer and faster computers.  It works. 

SYNERGISTIC MODELS:

Years ago Harold Magoun Sr., DO offered a paper titled “Osteopathic Approach to Dental Enigmas.”  Dr. Magoun and other pioneers of Osteopathic medicine in the first half of the twentieth century offered a structural analysis of the body, a deeply studied, clinically tested, and highly evolved understanding of physics of the human body, especially the skull along with its form and function (including the nervous system housed there in).  The research set standards little known today that still prove dramatically effective in understanding problems for which we as dentists cannot find the apparent etiology.  Their endeavors gave birth to osteopathy in the cranial field, an adjunct to help illuminate other aspects of osteopathy.  The insight is profound today as it was then, but rejected early on as it was not in the conventional model.  Then as now, too many professionals thought knowledge was complete and there was little new to add.  Their “opinions” were formed.

Osteopathy, like all models, has its limitations.  It is so good at so many things physical and energetic, but lacks the comprehensiveness that any given paradigm must by calling itself a model.  All models are only a model.  Osteopathy teaches structural integration, visceral movement and how it directly controls the musculoskeletal system (including to a strong degree a profound influence on the growth and development of the face, jaws and ultimately skeletal parameters within which the occlusion develops).  Its understanding and results run deep, but they are by no means complete.

Going even further back, more ancient medicines offered a detailed and extremely insightful compilation developed over thousands of years of treating the human body and its myriad of problems.  Entire branches of medicine developed, including variations of Eastern acupuncture with its understanding of how organs and energies intertwined in the health and function of the human body.  Ayeurvedic medicine also developed thousands of years ago in India.  It investigated the workings of the body in other ways, offering a way to live that kept the being in closer contact with nature…not separate and different from or exempt from its power.  Today these same fields of energy (chi, prana, electro-biology) are all being addressed from the “field” of quantum physics, a world apart from Newtonian physics of do this and you’ll always get that response.