Positive Health Online

This article is reproduced from the website of Dr Amir: http://dramir.com/blog/archives/147-Orthodontics-And-Health-A-scary-state-of-affairs.html

Regular readers of this website and thousands of former and current patients are aware of the intimate relationship between craniodental and skeletal symmetry, and overall health. Any asymmetry, especially in the temporomandibular joint, can give rise to some 60 different symptoms which can only be treated through corrective orthodontic and other physical interventions. Attempts at treating these symptoms through conventional medicine, instead of treating the root cause of the problem, has resulted in the creation of millions of chronically ill people worldwide.

In this article, I discuss the experiences of one patient, an experience that sheds some light on why so many patients are unnecessarily suffering from very treatable illnesses and why healthcare costs are spiralling out of control. Our NHS may about to be lost to private organizations that could quadruple costs for patients and for government. The financial waste evident in our health care system is a self-perpetuating vicious cycle that gets increasingly worse. Let me explain how a couple of aspects of this bottomless pit operate:

I had a 30 year old patient attend our office with numerous health problems as shown in the graph below. She was a regular, run-of-the-mill patient, who could have been easily handled here by symmetry treatment involving the correction of her jaws, orthodontic correction of the teeth, the Atlas vertebra and the hips. Her parents however chose to get other opinions.

Here are some excerpts from the words of a prominent orthodontist giving a second opinion:
"This patient is here because the parents do not know what to do with her set of complex (and they feel - interrelated) problems. She has a set of very confusing conditions(emphasis mine). She has, at times, been given some unusual advice (emphasis mine)about how to deal with it. The main complaints relate to the Gastro-intestinal system, but she believes her problems are related to her TMJ problems, neck, shoulder, hip, knee and ankle problems, all on her left side. She also feels she has a 'nerve' problem on the right arm.

Extra oral exam: Oval, balanced face.....Maximum mouth opening is 35mm. Had orthodontic treatment 20 years ago with 4 premolar extractions. Several posterior teeth are in cross bite, bilaterally, upper arch is narrowed. She had her wisdom teeth extracted 3 years ago (emphasis mine)."

Comment: All of the above the orthodontist considers a "normal state of affairs" and balks and ridicules any attempt by the patient or anyone else to relate her medical problems to the state of her jaws, the loss of eight teeth through amputational orthodontics and wisdom teeth extractions, her cross bite, her narrow upper arch and severe limitation of jaw opening. The orthodontist finally says:

"I am unable to compile a sensible diagnosis and treatment plan due to the many extra-oral complicating factors. She may need a multi-disciplinary approach in trying to solve these complaints". (emphasis mine)

He then goes on to refer her for a third opinion from a hospital orthodontic consultant asking him to supervise the "multi-disciplinary consultations" she needs for her many 'medical problems'.

Comment: This patient has spent a lifetime pursuing a "multi-disciplinary approach" only to find that her symptoms got progressively worse.

For the record, a normal jaw opening is 50 mm not 35mm which is pathognomonic. Cross bites are extremely unhealthy, with patients suffering numerous serious health problems. Dental extractions destroy the normal skull / neck harmony and the body's skeletal balance, leading to some 60 different symptoms from the top of the head to the soles of the feet.

This patient's symptoms are a classic example of what we see every day. Please read numerous postings on this website which explain the connection.

Further notes:
This patient returned after 9 months seeking to be re-accepted for treatment. She also dropped off the letter from the hospital consultant orthodontist to whom she was referred to by the above orthodontist, along with copies of numerous consultations with various medical specialists which she had undertaken in the previous nine months.

Here is a summary of the hospital consultant orthodontist's verdict:

1. "I have advised that her temporomandibular joint pain is not related to abdominal pain.
   "".......the temporomandibular joint should not be treated to relieve symptoms associated with her abdomen."
   "The temporomandibular joint would be best managed conservatively with the use of a removable splint in order to alleviate the muscular symptoms."! [This the patient duly undertook and her symptoms deteriorated considerably]
2. "There is no evidence to suggest that orthodontic treatment can improve temporomandibular Joint dysfunction. It is likely that orthodontic treatment would result in the condition remaining the same or could perhaps get worse."
3. "I would not advise the placement of dental implants."
4. "I suggest she await the results of her colonoscopy and attend her upcoming rheumatology appointment related to her abdominal pain."
5. "The issues relating to her facial pain should be managed as a separate entity."[No mention is made as to how this would be addressed.]
6. "In the long term, if there are still ongoing issues with left-sided body pain no pathological cause identified, a psychological evaluation may be of benefit."

This is pathognomonic of orthodox medicine - when no cause is found, write the patient off as a psychiatric case, whilst throwing cold water on anyone else who may have a solution to the patient's problem!

As this ill-informed consultant was at a teaching hospital, he probably had a few orthodontic students around him as he glossed over the patient's symptoms and rendered his outdated opinion. Unfortunately for the patient, she opted to follow some of the advice of the academic consultant, even though that advice sharply contradicted both mine and another Harley Street practising orthodontist's advice.

The patient was then handed over to the medical department starting with medical consultants mainly centred around gastroenterology ignoring all skeletal issues.

Some excerpts from the gastroenterology consultations are as follows.

Please keep a note of the number and extent of the medical investigations as you read along:
1. "I am pleased to report that the blood tests that we sent which included full blood count, urea and electrolyte, liver function tests, calcium and C-reactive protein were all reported within normal limits. An abdominal ultrasound was unremarkable. Endoscopic 'top and tail' identified no pathology either.
......I wonder if it will be helpful to refer her now to Rheumatologists....... I shall be seeing her again in clinic routinely."
2. Another gastroenterology consultant writes:
".....She has been troubled by such symptoms which may have been precipitated by events at work."
"She has had an ultra sound scan, MRI scans, repeated stool samples and blood tests as well as less conventional investigations including hair analysis.

In addition to seeing conventional doctors, she has consulted chiropractors and an osteopath......She is taking probiotics and Ayurvedic supplements...........Relatively recent blood tests taken include a negative coeliac antibody screen, normal vitamin D levels and thyroid function and calcium all within normal levels, as well as an unremarkable IgE. A faecal antigen test for hepatic pylori was negative in April.

In addition to the GI features, she also comments on a number of bony issues including what appears to be a temporomandibular joint pain, problems with her left pelvis and left ankle which "clicks out" She comments on problems at C5/C6 too."

[No further comment is made about these extremely important points. The gastroenterologist recommends repeating all the above tests - at the taxpayer's expense so the merry-go-round goes round and round again while the patient continues to get worse.]

3. A private gastroenterologist remarks:
"If further investigations prove to be normal she may benefit from dietetic advice."!
4. Yet another gastroenterologist gives his verdict:
"On examination she looked clinically well. She was not anaemic. There was no lymphadenopathy and her skin was fully intact (emphasis mine). I do not think any further investigations were required and I thought her symptoms were very much in keeping with an irritable bowel......... she should make dietary modifications to obtain better symptom control."!
5. A consultant urologist now comes into the picture:
"...She has been extensively investigated with a CT scan and ultrasound of the abdomen, and has recently been to India, and has had an MRI of the lower back and intravenous pyelogram all of which have been normal.
Whilst in India she underwent investigation of the urine, and underwent further extensive blood tests including sugar, liver function tests, urea and electrolytes and staining for acid fast bacilli. All these tests including Mantoux and health tests were normal.
Abdominal tuberculosis has been excluded on CT scan, and there appears no abnormality on the intravenous pyelogram..... most significant finding is an elevated ESR of 39.
In the first instance I do not think she needs a flexible cystoscopy and hydro distension, but I am organizing a four-day frequency voiding volume chart and performing a MSU to see whether there is still a sterile pyuria........
She will need further investigations [with the initial gastroenterologist] with respect to the raised ESR."
6. In comes a private rheumatologist:
"......At the moment the only working diagnosis is Irritable Bowel Syndrome [meaning we do not know what it is.] Her high ESR and platelets suggest a possible underlying inflammatory process.
.....as you know there is a long list of possible causes of her symptoms and I am sure some of the symptoms may be related to her irritable bowel. Inflammatory processes involving costo-chondral joints in the ribs are a possibility and also instability in the ribs can cause this type of pain.
I have asked her GP to organize some further blood tests and refer her to my NHS practice for further investigations with isotope bone scanning and possibly MRI. In terms of the high ESR we will need to do auto-immune screening and both protein and urine electrophoresis."! [God help! Did I read auto-immune? This is an entirely different subject which regularly sucks in thousands of patients. Please read under Multiple Sclerosis many postings on this blog]
7. Back comes an original gastroenterologist:
"Symptoms have improved by taking Motilium [Domperidone used for nausea and vomiting and associated with an increased risk of serious ventricular arrhythmias which could be life threatening]. The left sided abdominal pain has not entirely cleared. She has not improved with anti-spasmodics and the next agent to be used is amitriptyline [This drug is supposed to be prescribed for depression and nocturnal enuresis] which is known to improve the symptoms of IBS."

Comment: I had been wondering when they will get to this 10 penny a tablet amitriptyline - a mainstay of most IBS patients after costing the NHS some £50,000 of expenses on the various futile tests, scans, consultant and hospital costs - to date and ongoing. This drug carries a number of warnings and I have seen it used on patients for dozens of conditions from headache to back pain to just name a couple.

It is ironic that despite the expertise of a dozen consultants costing the country upwards of £250,000 each per annum, the use of equipment and facilities costing billions of pounds, in the most modern health care settings, the patient is no better and if anything worse and still on the 'medical investigations' merry-go-round.

IBS affects one in five people in the UK. Our NHS is indeed paralysed with absolutely useless "multi-disciplinary approaches" wasting some 20 billion pounds a year on these futile investigations which fail to find anything wrong perhaps 98% of the time. It keeps many hospital departments abuzz with activity whilst the taxpayers pay for these dramas enacted day in and day out in almost every hospital. The gastroenterology departments are usually the biggest part of most hospitals - they need to be to carry out the millions of tests and scans, to finally condemn the patients into syndromes such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) meaning we do not know what is wrong with you; Here take these antidepressants!
The finality is as crude as that.

This scenario is repeated all over many other departments in cases of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia (FM), Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to name just a few.

In some countries this system regularly bankrupts families who fall victim to a myriad of 'manufactured' illnesses and syndromes with not a semblance of a cure in sight. In fact medicine has conveniently made the word ‘cure’ a taboo and no one dare ask their physician if they have any chance of a cure.

Something has gone amiss. The agenda has changed. There is a pill for every illness, mostly inappropriate and often with serious adverse reactions. The idea of altruistic behaviour remaining at the heart of medical professionalism appears to have long disappeared. The incessant advancement of the often deceitful pharmaceutical agenda is corruptive and casting medical altruism back into the dark ages of medicine.

More particularly, do these specialists on whom the public so relies upon ever think that after failing again and again, day in and day out, to bring any relief to the patients, that there could be something seriously amiss in their knowledge and methodology and they should perhaps open their eyes and ears and listen to the patient who is screaming out, it is my jaw, it is my neck, it is my shoulder, it is my hip. No one listens. What an embarrassingly shameful handling of patients.

It makes it very difficult for a general dentist or orthodontist to accept such a patient for treatment as she has the backing of a hospital consultant who categorically claims that such treatment does not work. She is condemned to the medical specialists who are already contemplating putting her in the cuckoo's nest through the illicit use of antidepressants because they have absolutely NO answers for her illness.

I am not only sorry for this patient but sorry for thousands of others who are victims of such disgraceful inadequacies in our teaching institutions and decadent professionalism.

My point could not have been better emphasized than what appeared in the Telegraph newspaper and reads:

NHS tests and drugs 'do more harm than good'

"Senior doctors have warned that patients are given drugs and tests they may not need because GPs and hospitals are paid for the quantity of treatment.”

Please read more here.

Further Information

See more at: http://dramir.com/blog/categories/117-Orthodontics#sthash.9eYu7NrJ.W410FPYo.dpuf