Structural Medicine integrated into your cranial-dental care
Why is integrating care with your dentist so important when dealing with TMD?
Splint work and orthodontia is about much more than just changing your face, your bite, your airway, or your jaw. At its core it is cranial work, and cranial work at its core is all about making positive affects on the nervous system. As you go through this process your body will begin to change physically, as well as physiologically. You’re going to be able to more readily enter into a nervous system state called parasympathetic, where the body can repair itself and integrate food much more efficiently. You’ll have an increase in oxygen intake, which helps virtually all processes in out body. And, you will have more structural integrity in something called the stomatognathic system. This complex system is a combination of the way our teeth come together (our bite, or occlusion), the way our jaw functions, and our airway. This has profound affects on our special awareness and our ability to balance and function symmetrically. With all that being said, as amazing a tool as a splint or orthodontia can be, sometimes there are major issues in the rest of the body, away from the bite and TMJ, that can slow or limit the progress made when one undergoes epigenetic ortho. Or, as is sometimes the case, the dentist is confidently moving things into correct alignment in regards to the bite, TMJ, and airway, but because the body has been a certain way for years and years, it sometimes offers resistance to these changes. That’s where structural medicine can be an extremely important tool in this process.
We utilize a combination of techniques aimed at helping the body better adapt to the major structural changes being created by the epigenetic orthodontia, as well as help the process go smoother and potentially faster by cleaning up any major structural issues going on outside of the bite and TMJ. What are some of these tools?
1. Sacro-Occipital Technique (SOT)
2. Applied Kinesiology (AK)
3. Vector Point cranial
Dr. Scoppa has undergone extensive post-graduate training and certification in cranial-dental co-management, occlusion, and TMJ therapies, and has worked with a number of well-respected TMJ dentists. He is the only certified Craniopath in WA state, the only certified SOT or AK practitioner, and one of only a handful of doctors in the country that utilizes Vector Point cranial. He teaches SOT and cranial-dental co-management courses for SOTO-USA, the only non-dental group that is a part of the TMD-Alliance (a group of allied professionals who unite in the idea of multidisciplinary care being the best options for most TMD cases). The tools he is utilizing are far different than traditional methods of structural medicine, such as chiropractic, cranial-sacral, massage, or PT, and in most cases are much more adept for working with this patient demographic.