Hey all,
Steven, I started seeing a patient with “lock jaw”, she had two surgeries 11 years ago on the articular disc in the TMJ, to help increase movement, which appears to have not helped. She has flare ups that last for weeks where she can only open the oral cavity 15mm and when there are no flare ups she has better function of the joint. There is no family history of lock jaw, no prior traumas to the surgery, although i did not ask about her birth, she is 27y/o and has been losing weight because it is very difficult and discomforting to eat due to the pain that is elicited. The lock jaw worsens with eating and talking. She takes quite a few over the counter pain killers through out the entire day.
I saw her for the first time last week and there was midline and breath, and even though there was breath, there was a calling to hold CVJ which was held. Sadly I did not check WBI, and this is because i was in the Bastyr clinic and i was not given permission to check that with lock jaw. I was advised to do craniosacral, decompress and unwind the TMJ, massage the pterygoids (inside the oral cavity of course) and masseter muscles. The CVJ was performed under the cloaking of saying “I am doing a craniosacral occipital release hold” to my supervisors. The supervisor later came in and evaluated the patient and felt there was a massive obstruction along C1 and C2 vertebra’s and asked her for permission to perform a high velocity low amplitude adjustment on these vertebra’s, because in the supervisors practice he notices a lot of lock jaw can be relieved by opening these particular restrictions . She declined because she is feeling so locked up and in pain and feels uncomfortable moving her head in the direction it would require to free up those vertebra. The supervisor felt the C1 C2 restrictions after the CVJ, which i found interesting because they were breathing to my senses. Although, I could see how the supervisor would want to adjust those vertebra, even though they felt locked up I believe they could have opened up later in the days due to the energy component of the CVJ, or possibly not and some dynamite may be needed on the atlas. We will see. If i had more time the upper coils would have been addressed, particularly the relationship with the clavice, mastoid process.
I am writing because i am curious what your experiences have been, working with Lock Jaw or mandible complaints in general. Of course every individual is so different in how the present symptoms, since a lot of pains and discomforts can stem from WBI being off or no midline or breath, etc. But perhaps there are some patterns you have observed and noted over the years that could be helpful for me to consider with mandible related concerns. And of course the surgery could have messed things up for life as well with this patient and so then the question is, how much is reversible from that point?
Thanks Steven,
Oh, would you be open to presenting the AOC in Seattle, I just moved into this beautiful house that is right on Lake Washington, equipped with a dock and wonderful panoramic views of the lake with river otters and bald eagles cowering above, truly a magical house that would be wonderful to host a AOC orientation. I posted a video of it on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1X3ynTW-c check it out.
And if any other AOC groupies are listening in, you are always welcome to come visit and stay with me.
