Heal Your TMJ: 6 Steps to Heal Jaw, Head, & Neck Pain for Life

By Haissam Dahan

TMJ clicking. Jaw locking. Headaches. Migraines. Ear pain. Stiff Neck. The evidence is overwhelming: the roots of these issues may be caused by your TMJ! TMJ is the name of the joint of the jaw, and groundbreaking research has now revealed that it may be the cause of many chronic pains we suffer. TMJ is the second most common musculoskeletal pain, and as many as 1 in every 3 people will experience TMJ pain in their lifetime. For the longest time, people suffered in silence with TMJ pain, but new breakthrough advancements in research and treatment reveal that you can life a life TMJ-pain-free!

Drawing on his private practice, where he works with people suffering with TMJ, Dr. Dahan reveals in this book his 6 steps to eradicating chronic TMJ pain from your life. He will draw experience from his years working with TMJ sufferers to teach you how to heal your TMJ and live your best life ever!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9780228882305

Haissam Dahan

Dr. Haissam Dahan became a dentist in 2005, and furthered his education by completing a clinical fellowship in orofacial pain at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He conducted TMJ research, earning a PhD from McGill University in 2014. He has lectured at Harvard, McGill and Tufts University, and has spoken at national and international conferences. He has a successful private practice in Ottawa helping patients who are suffering with TMJ pain.Dr. Dahan lives in Ottawa with his wife, and has two young boys and a girl. He enjoys running, cycling, and spending time outdoors with his family and friends.

Book preview

Heal Your TMJ

6 Steps to Eradicating Chronic Pain

Haissam Dahan, DMD, PhD

Heal Your TMJ

Copyright © 2022 by Haissam Dahan, DMD, PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-8229-9 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-8228-2 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-8230-5 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1:   My Life as a TMD Dentist

Chapter 2:   Why Do You Have Temporomandibular Disorder?

Chapter 3:   Step One – Getting a Good Sleep

Chapter 4:   Step Two – Morning Meditation and Affirmations Routine

Chapter 5:   Step Three – Jaw and Body Stretching

Chapter 6:   Step Four – Exercising and Healthy Eating

Chapter 7:   Step Five – Journaling Your Feelings

Chapter 8:   Step Six – How and When to Seek Help From a Health Professional

Chapter 9:   Living a Good Life

Chapter 10:   Putting it all Together: Your Quick Reference Guide

Resources

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my amazing wife, Sarah, who supports and loves me more than I could have ever asked for or imagined was possible. She is my lucky charm, and my life is beautiful and joyful because of her. With her by my side, everything else is just icing on the cake. I also want to thank my wonderful parents, Mohamad and Joumana, for bringing our family to Canada and giving my sister and me the opportunity for a better life. Finally, I want to thank my children, Mohamad, Bilaal, and Batoul, for their hugs, kisses, and love. Nothing has given me more joy than being their father.

Chapter 1

My Life as a TMD Dentist

Sophia was my first patient at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where I completed my training in orofacial pain management. My supervisor, Dr. Shaefer, had asked me to see her. When I first saw her sitting in the dental chair, I was surprised by her appearance. She had on big dark glasses, and to my astonishment, the lights in the examining room were turned off.

Umm…good morning. I’m…, I started, slightly lost for words. Although I had, by that point, seen thousands of patients as a general dentist, this was my first time treating a TMJ patient.

Oh, you must be the newbie. What’s your name, dear? Sophia asked in her Bostonian accent.

I’m Dr. Dahan, and yes, today is my first day here, I said to Sophia, who turned her whole body to see me but was in obvious pain because she could not completely turn her head to face me.

Welcome, dear. You and I are going to be good friends, she said, reaching out her hand to touch mine.

And she was right. Sophia, as it turned out, was a regular at the hospital. She and I became good friends. I was sad to say goodbye when I graduated a year later. I discovered that Sophia was wearing dark glasses and had the lights off because she had a severe case of TMJ disorder. It gave her intense migraines and neck pain. She was literally locked in a dark world where she spent most of her days at home in bed. Sophia told me about her young son, who she felt has suffered because of her chronic pain. She explained how she usually couldn’t play with him outside because of her headaches and how she had to stop going to his baseball games as the loud cheering aggravated her migraines.

At the beginning of my career treating pain patients, I was eager to cure Sophia and all of my other patients, and I would quickly prescribe pills their way. My favorites were opioid pain killers, sedatives, and muscle relaxers. They’d come back confused and dizzy but still in pain. So then I escalated my treatments to include injections of anesthetics, botulinum toxin (a natural venom!), and steroids to numb, destroy, and paralyze the pain. They’d leave my office and return later, unable to move the painful body parts, but they would still be in pain! Hmm… Maybe it was surgery that they needed.

Then I started to refer patients for surgeries, flushing joints, replacing the temporomandibular joints, freezing, or even killing the nerves! Surely this would work. If you killed the nerve, then they couldn’t feel! They would return numb and drooling but were still coming back with pain. How was that possible? Why were my patients still complaining of pain if we killed the nerve? It seemed nothing I introduced and tried worked on my patients. They always felt better at the beginning, only to come back a few weeks, months, or at most, a year later with the same pain, sometimes stronger.

Is it me? I thought. Am I a terrible pain doctor? So I called my mentors, two pain specialists and clinic directors of the biggest pain centres in North America. They said the same thing: The best we can do is manage their pain.

For a while, I tried to accept that. I’d go to work expecting my patients to stay in pain. I tried to reconcile myself to that fact. I’d listen to my patients tell me they were in pain and they couldn’t experience life’s little joys. For example, they’d stopped kissing their spouse for fear that their jaw would lock, or they’d lost their jobs because they took too many sick days off because of their migraine headaches. I felt helpless to make a difference in their lives. I thought I was doing well until one day, I just lay in bed and didn’t want to get up. I was dreading going to work. What was the point?

I told my wife as she tried to elbow me up from bed. I don’t feel like going into work today. I can’t help these people. I tried, and I can’t.

During one stressful clinic day, where one patient after another would return with the same persistent pain over and over again, I had a panic attack. My world seemed like it was going to stop. I kept hearing voices. Was it my own voice or those of others? I cancelled the rest of the day and went to the beach near my clinic.

As I walked along the Ottawa River, I felt numb to the beauty around me. The sun was glistening across the water, birds were flying in the sky, and people were kayaking and paddle surfing along the water’s edge, but I couldn’t find the energy to enjoy any of it. This is not what I signed up for, I thought to myself. I considered shutting down the TMJ clinic and going back to general dentistry. At least there, I could fill a cavity, fix a tooth, and know I made a difference. As I thought about closing the clinic and letting go of all of my patients, I started to get a migraine. Great! I’m now getting headaches like my patients, I thought as I headed home.

My wife, always knowing what I needed before I even knew, suggested I take time off to figure out exactly what I wanted to do before making rash decisions like giving up a career I worked so hard for. With her encouragement, I decided to enroll in a week-long spiritual retreat near Montreal. Our teachers for the week-long retreat were Shaykh Hamdi and his wife, Anse Shenaz, both of the Sufi Islam spiritual path.

The program focused on lessons we could draw from the teachings of the famous Sufi poet, Rumi. Every morning, after sunrise prayers and meditation, the teachers would read one poem by Rumi and discuss it, inviting the participants to reflect on the message being delivered to us in our lives. The retreat was held outdoors near a lake just outside Montreal. However, the week of the event was one of the hottest weeks ever recorded. At the beginning, instead of focusing on the beautiful souls of the attendees and the beautiful views, I was more focused on the intense heat we were experiencing and wished we were indoors in the AC room. Instead, we were told to stay out in nature, as there is