Hi, I am curious to hear about other people’s experience in working with dentists and oral surgeons in conjunction with Eagle’s Syndrome. I have TMJ and jaw/head/cervical spine instability, vascular issues that have ultimately affected my teeth and bite. Hard to tell which came first. This has all been very frustrating and never ending and expensive because so much is out of network with insurance or considered a dental thing, even though it is clearly a medical issue. I can provide more info on some of the points below as I have succeeded in getting some coverage and finding some help…just not enough and not in Colorado. I am willing to travel to someone out of state at this point.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a dentist who is really knowledgeable in working with patients who have Eagle Syndrome?
What types of oral splints have you had made and by whom? Or possibly something orthotic to wear for stabilization and support that relieves jaw joint pressure?
How have you been able to get things done by a dental office covered by medical insurance? (ie. oral splints, orthotics, any teeth repairs or dental work like crowns/implants for jaw stabilization)
This is a very good question and something I’m wondering about as well. I went down the route of TMJ and dental origins to my pain before I knew about Eagle Syndrome but didn’t get much success.
I’m going to have to get some dental work done after my jugulars are fixed because in my case I think I’ve had pretty much unrelenting acid reflux, likely due to vagus nerve entrapment, that has caused a lot of excess wear on my teeth. I’ve learned that the vagus nerve controls the lower esophageal sphincter, which usually keeps acid in your stomach. When the vagus nerve is dysfunctional the normal signals your brain sends to your stomach to close the LES are impaired and this can allow “backsplash” of acid reflux into the esophagus or even into the mouth were it can cause wear on the teeth. I’ve found that it is very difficult to control acid reflux if the vagus nerve is the cause.
Other gastrointestinal problems like gastroperesis that are common with this condition can worsen the acid reflux symptoms.
I don’t know if there are many dentists who are very familiar with Eagle Syndrome. I think it’s usually best to fully resolve the compression with an ENT or neurosurgeon who is very experienced with this, then follow up with addressing TMJ, jaw alignment, cervical stability, etc afterwards.
I do wear a mouth guard at night that is suppose to help prevent clenching and grinding.
I definitely know there is a connection between your bite, TMJ, cervical stability and all the other things that go along with these conditions. I just think it will be hard to make any progress on these issues so long as you have jugular or vagus nerve compression, or CSF leaks. Intracranial pressure disturbance and vagus nerve dysfunction will cause so many problems it will be difficult or impossible to do much else until that issue is fixed.
I will say that one avenue to explore is myofunctional therapy. This, combined with things like atlas orthogonal adjustments and possible prolotherapy/PRP injections to dealing with any residual cervical instability, could really help realign everything after you’ve had surgery. Combined with any dental work you may need.
So, I think they are connected, but treatment is quite separate. It depends on what can be verified and your symptoms. For me, I had a tongue tie, muscle based TMJ, and Eagles. So a number of factors in a small area with overlapping symptoms and sort of overlapping treatment. I did therapy and surgery for the tongue tie, symptoms persist, treatment for the TMJ, symptoms persist, and am set for my first Eagles surgery on Monday, quite confident symptoms will go away. These are all treated by different Drs and the only role a Dentist played was making a hard night guard that initially was to prevent clenching at night, but since I know I don’t clench at night it acts more like a retainer because during my tongue tie treatment I did the Myobrace system, which moved my teeth a little.
Is your TMJ more joint based or muscle based? Joint based meaning the joints are damaged, if not, then it is probably muscle based. I had great treatment by a physical therapist for that, with dry needling being the main treatment (covered by medical). The splint I had made is a dental appliance, so dental coverage. The tongue tie treatment actually used my orthodontic benefit because it involved moving my teeth, like braces would. Your best bet is to get things pre-authorized before treatment, or ask the provider for what codes they will use and then call your insurance and ask them directly about coverage with those codes at that provider. Usually dental offices can only use dental codes, granted, since my night guard was for TMJ, my insurance was able to cover it under my medical benefit, but it was an annoying process that took 4+ months to resolve.
You are in CO, Dr. Hepworth is arguably the best, but that means his waitlist is long. Your best bet is to get diagnosis and treatment plans for everything and then you can decide what you want to do first weighing factors like cost, insurance coverage, schedule, etc
Elon Musk just posted on twitter that his AI tool Grok can take an image and render an opinion. He said it accurately diagnosed a medical problem of a friend. I think you have to be blue checked to access but not sure
If anyone tries it with their scans please let us know. It would be amazing if Grok got it right when a doctor got it wrong
I’m UK so have no info re insurance etc, but from what I’ve read of members’ experiences on here, it’s maybe not wise to spend too much on splints etc if you are going to pursue surgery at some point as some have found that their jaw position alters post surgery & then guards don’t fit etc. But I don’t know if that’s at all helpful!
I haven’t had a lot of discussion with him about Eagle, but I’ve been feeling good about my dental treatment with Dr. Briskie at Revive dental in Firestone. He’s EDS aware enough to get me really well numbed, anyway.