Taking Control of Tmj: Your Total Wellness Program for Recovering from Temporomandibular Joint Pain, Whiplash, Fibromyalgia, and Related Diso

by Robert O. Uppgaard

Book Overview

If you are among the 60 million people in the United States affected by TMJ disorder, then you may know what it's like to have your problem be misdiagnosed or go untreated. Perhaps you've undergone... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1572241268
• ISBN13: 9781572241268
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

If you have TMJ, you simply must read this book

The other reviewers have said it very well. The exercises provided me immediate relief (Search Inside the book for "exercise," and you can do them while you're waiting for shipment!) I really like the approach he takes - conservative, and taking all causes into consideration (dental, joint, and muscular.) He rightly points out that dentists, surgeons and doctors all tend to see it through their own filter, and he takes a broader view so you can consider them all. I cannot stress enough though how the elimination of coffee has helped me. This is extremely difficult, and I can't always stay away -- but every time I drink some, I end up with pain and tension. I also recommend the "Stop TMJ and Teeth Grinding" CD by Scott Sulak. I woke up in significantly less pain after the first use.

a non-invasive cure

This book offers a simple, non-invasive cure to a miserable problem that is poorly understood or treated. I had chronic jaw pain for over a year when I happened to meet Dr. Uppgaard at a holiday party. During our conversation the topic of TMJ came up and I learned that he had a book out on the subject. Within days of doing the simple exercises, my pain began to diminish, and was completely gone in about two weeks. Now it only returns during times of stress, and by doing these exercises again for a few days, it disappears. After all that time of being in pain, who could imagine that the solution could be so simple! This book is certainly an important "first try" before doing something like surgery which can makes the problem worse. THANK YOU, DR. BOB!

TMJ and Vision

I came upon this book in a very roundabout way ---- during the process of improving my vision by natural means of all things. What could eyesight and the TMJ possibly have in common? In my case, a great deal I was to discover. When I first started improving my vision naturally, I thought it was only about the eyes and did not appreciate the whole health aspect. I was in for many surprises and some confusion when I eventually began having referred pain and sensations in areas seemingly unconnected to the eyes. It didn't initially dawn on me that there was any relationship between these symptoms and my improving eyesight. Then I began to wonder, could there be a connection? I studied several books on natural vision improvement (Relearning to See --- RTS for short - and Better Eyesight are highly recommended) which made reference to blurred vision causing tight muscles and problems in many other areas of the body. Muscle groups affected can include such areas as the neck, shoulders, jaw, ears, cheeks and forehead. It soon became abundantly obvious that the symptoms I had been experiencing fit the reversal pattern of holistic healing. Suggestions were made in the RTS book to try some holistic healing treatments in conjunction with relearning the proper vision habits. One of several mentioned was TMJ treatment, yet the term had no significance to me at the time. Because of my neck and shoulder stiffness and pains, I opted for massage therapy sessions and obtained significant tension releases which the therapist also noticed. It turned out that the type of massage was myofascial release. I was intrigued to learn more on the Internet when I got home. The many website results that came up in my search about myofascial release were in relation to TMJ disorders. There was that term again. Bingo! It was like a piece of a puzzle falling into place. I chose to buy Dr. Uppgaard's book to find out more. I was amazed to read so many parallels and similar topics in Dr. Uppgaard's book and the RTS book. Both authors discuss such subjects as the impact of mental stress, neck and shoulder problems, the ears and hearing, dizziness, proper breathing, referred pain, the importance of good posture and the benefits of holistic healing treatments. But what really jumped off the pages in Dr. Uppgaard's book were references to certain neck muscles that, if tense, could cause "visual disturbances and blurring of vision". The RTS book states that "the neck is tight for all people who have blurred vision." The sternocleidomastoid muscle described on page 50 of Dr. Uppgaard's book has had such a strong connection with my improving vision. I've gotten to the stage where I can massage areas in this muscle to release tension (trigger points as discussed in his book) and cause spasm-like sensations in and around my eyes, ears, jaw and cheeks. Looking back many years ago, I believe now that my dentist had at one time suspected a TMJ disorder. I recall him checking the TMJ on both si

Thank you for writing this Book!

I was diagnosed with TMJ many years ago. For the past year I have been battling with numb fingers. After many tests, much time, and a lot of money - an accidental visit to my dentist helped to show TMJ was affecting my fingers. I had never heard of that happening. This book not only lists every possible symptom, but exercises that are extremely helpful. After reading the book for about 15 minutes, I tried the first exercise. My jaw felt immediate relief. I am very grateful for this book. It will certainly help in relieving pain and discomfort.

More MD's, DO's and DC's Should Read This Book!

I have been treating TMD for almost ten years and now have a book that is worth its weight in gold, for both patients and my sometimes uninformed and too busy colleagues in medicine.I am a chiropractic physician, treating the moving parts of the body and their soft tissue (i.e. muscles, ligaments, cartilage) attachments and connections. Many of my colleagues in chiropractic, osteopathic and allopathic medicine, unfortunately, do not know how to properly diagnose or treat this condition. This book would be useful to fellow professionals as well as laypersons.TMD is real, and poorly understood by many. Uppgaard does us a favor, too, by discussing TMD and whiplash injuries. Clearly a hot debate in the medical and engineering literature, even the national auto insurance industry admits that TMJ injuries occur at least 4% of the time. My guess, based on ten years experience treating motor vehicle collision (MVC) injuries is that the TMJ is injured closer to 50% of the time. In any case, arguments such as "the TMJ cannot be injured in MVC" are clearly ridiculous based just on the epidemiological literature. Further, the methods used to investigate injury to the TMJ in human volunteer auto crash testing are still inadequate, still insensitive. An analogy would be to perform an MRI of the cervical spine in a patient after a car crash, getting a positive study showing a mildly herniated disc, only to find out during surgery (I referred the patient due to lack of treatment response after FOUR weeks, the federal and state standard for chiropractic medicine) that the disc is SEVERELY herniated, that two other disc "bulges" are in fact disc ruptures, and that there is severe damage to the posterior longitudinal ligament, facet capsular ligaments and interspinous ligaments. In plain English, the MRI is mostly a very INSENSITIVE test for seeing damage to ligaments other than the discs, even though it is often OVERVALUED by physicians, patients, and researchers studying MVC. And what you really have in this example is a grossly false negative study (see studies in Medline like those by Taylor et al. looking at autopsy studies of the spines of MVC victims who died of natural causes within days after their crashes).So if your physician isn't looking for TMJ sprain-strain or dysfunction after a MVC, he or she isn't going to find it (and if your physician that day is an insurance company doctor, this could be the case, nudge, nudge, know what I mean?). And just because your doctor doesn't find a TMD or doesn't talk about it with you, or more commonly, doesn't WANT to talk about it with you (is embarrassed to say "I don't know", a common, arrogant, and too often devastating mistake), that doesn't mean your TMJ hasn't been injured. Bravo for Dr. Uppgaard for bringing this common injury and condition to the masses. It provides a refreshing alternative to misguided books like one by Ferrari ("The Whiplash Encyclopedia