The Bite-Body Connection: Why Chiropractic Care is Critical for Optimal Dental Health with Dr. Joseph Canul

Hi, everybody. I'm Dr. Sandhya Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body. As we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy, so take care of it in the most natural way. In today's show, we will be talking to Dr. Kunal about the TMJ and everything else that has to do with chiropractic. So welcome, Dr. Kunal, to our Holistic Dentistry show.

Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.

Me too. And I'm very humbled to have worked with you. You've taught me many things about the head and neck and about the TMJ that I applied to my patients all the time. And it really brought awareness to me and the other doctors in the practice about the importance of the whole alignment, not just looking at teeth and the jaw.

Thank you for that. I have a varied history. I've been involved in the healthcare field for probably 55 years and I'm only 22. I don't think that happened, but through all of the patients that I've treated, athletes, powerlifters, karate participants. I've gone to the K1 tournament in Tokyo with some of my fighters. I worked out of gyms and I took all that information and applied it to my patients over time. And what I found was that the TMJ is the most important joint in the body because of its nerve connections. So we look at the primary nerve of the trigeminal nerve. Three pronged nerve affects the eye, the mandible and the maxilla. So that connects back to the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the highest originating nerve in the brain and it splits. One portion goes to the endocrine system, the other portion goes to the spinal cord. So whatever goes on in the gastrointestinal area can affect the jaw and cause a shift in the jaw. If you have trauma to the neck, thoracic spine, lumbar spine, that can also trigger a response to the TMJ and cause a shift. This is the 101, this is the 405.

I see.

It's all, it's a network of nerves that's all connected. And if you go to the gym to show you how important this is, and you see these behemoths, magnificent muscle bound individuals pushing to their maximum ability to move that weight, if their jaw is out of place, one shoulder is going to be lower than the other, and they're going to be pushing more on the right than the left or vice versa. And that contributes to bicipital tendon tear, a rotator cuff tear. There's all sorts of problems that can occur in the shoulders because of that imbalance.

I see. Very interesting. So for those of you who don't know, what TMJ stands for is the temporomandibular joint. And if you actually put two fingers right in front of your ear and you open and close, you're going to feel something moving here. That's basically your TM joint or temporomandibular joint that we're talking about. And what makes this joint so special compared, let's say, to like the knee.

We use our mouth for speech, for chewing, for digesting food, et cetera. The knee is one of the more complex joints in the body and it's used primarily to support us. So when you look at the femur is a very solid bone. The strongest bone in the body is probably the jaw as opposed to the femur. But when you look at the balance that has to occur. You need to maintain stability here in order to avoid migraines, headaches, visual disturbances, inability to speak properly. So there's a whole dichotomy that occurs between the jaw and comparing it to the joints of the body. So I feel that because of that we have a more in depth approach to what you do as a periodontist. And I have the utmost respect for you because you're a magnificent professional in your field and you've lectured to the whole world about what you do. And I'm honored to be with you to discuss these things.

Yeah. And I really wanted to talk about the TMJ or temporomandibular joint, because it's kind of these obscure subject even for dentists. Right. We don't really, we're not taught in school what exactly to do with it. Oh, you're having pain. Oh, go to a specialist. Go to somewhere else. We don't want to touch you because we don't know what it is. But basically, right here in front of the ears, as the joint opens and closes, what stabilizes is really the position of the teeth. So for those of you maybe that are missing teeth or your teeth have shifted and your bite is not on, your joint's not gonna. Because you know the bite. That's how the two of us are connected. Because you help me to diagnose patients in terms of what is their joint doing in relation to the teeth. And I look at the teeth, you look at the joints and then we chat. That's how it works. Yeah, but for so many of my patients in the last few years, last three years, to be exact, I've come in with a lot of stress and a lot of TMJ pain on the side of the face because they're stressed and they're clenching or grinding. How does that affect the joint?

When you look at. And I'm not a dentist, so I rely on your expertise, but what you stated just now makes perfect sense. So when you look at the teeth and there's an imbalance there that can occur from grinding, from clenching, and this occurs in normal individuals with their daily exposure to the amount of stress that we have in our lives. And so when they go to sleep at night, they may end up clenching or grinding their teeth. And that creates the imbalance because the jaw will shift and put pressure on the trigeminal nerve, which goes back and affects the occiput and everything else that's affiliated here. The interesting thing about all this is that if you've had any head trauma, if there's been a chemical imbalance, for example, vaping, smoking will create an imbalance in the hippocampus, which is right by the temporal area of the skull. Latest research relates to the hippocampus actually reducing in size because we don't get enough exercise, the blood sugar is off, it's too high, and we don't have enough omega 3 fatty acids in our diet, and that feeds that. So that's just one of the side effects. But back to talking about the TM joint. When there's an imbalance, all of these side effects occur. And in order to make a correction, you, as what you do as a professional, have to balance the teeth to a degree. If the jaw shifts and there's a decrease of cartilage where there's compression, you can actually get a popping, clicking, cracking, crunching in either side or both parts of the temporomandibular joint. What happens is that because of that compression, you can actually get what we call the translation of the disc. The disc is a figure 8 disc that sits on the condyle from between the temporal bone and the condyle. And it will actually try, we call, translate. It will move back and forth. And that's what causes the clicking, popping that you feel in the jaw. If there's crunching, then we have joint mice in that area, and that's pieces of cartilage that have gotten loose. And you hear this crunching.

That means your disc is damaged is.

That the disc is damaged. And you have to look at the amount of compression that's occurred on the condyle. If it's flattened, there's a real problem there. And I've treated individuals that have had mandibular surgery to make corrections, and they're in tremendous discomfort. And fortunately, I'm able to shift things around in order to balance that area. So when you look again at the TM joint, temporal mandibular joint, it's also affected by a shift of the cranial structures. For example, the frontal bone will shift, will actually go back. The parietal bone will actually drop down. The temple bone will go to the rear, and the occipital bone will drop. It can be on the left side or the right side. I find most commonly that it occurs on the left side. You have to adjust this area in order to find stability in the TN joint. If you don't do that, then you can exacerbate a condition by applying the wrong set of TMJ appliances.

Makes sense.

So you have to balance that. So think of it as the jaw being level. It's normal when there's an imbalance. The jaw will, if you look at it, compare it to the foundation of a house, the foundation will be tilted. So if you want to make that correction, you want to lift that back up, and you do that with the appliance. But all of these other procedures have to be done before that occurs in order to maintain that balance. Otherwise, you can exacerbate this condition, make it worse, and contribute to their discomfort. And you have to look at. And there again, that's where you come in, where you have to determine the viability of what you're doing. And in placing these items within the oral cavity.

Yeah. Now, you said something very important. You said people that have had chemical imbalance or trauma, there's going to be a misplacement. How do you sense that or how do you test that displacement?

I have a unique approach where I do muscle testing, kinesiology. I can determine the weakness in that area. And also as a medical intuitive, I can scan people, look at them, and determine what exactly is wrong. That's just unique to me and other medical intuitives that do what I do.

Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I can't. I hope one day I'll be a medical intuitive like you. But how did you develop that skill of becoming a medical intuitive?

Actually, I've had psychic ability all my life, and I didn't utilize it because I didn't Know how to deal with it. It caused a lot of upset mentally with me because I would hear things, feel things, see things, and I didn't know how to deal with it as a youngster. As I got older, I was taken under the wing of a medical practitioner who recognized and acknowledged what I was going through. And she actually helped me to develop what I do now. And because of that, it's helped me help a tremendous number of people that I've come across.

Yeah, that's great. So, I mean, by profession you were trained chiropractor, right?

Yes, I've been a licensed chiropractor since 1978. Sorry, 1979. I graduated in 78. I've had extensive clinics throughout the state of California. I had a clinic in San Francisco, Fresno, San Diego, and Tarzana. And Tarzana. I had a 3,200 square foot facility where I, with my other practitioners, we treated between 75 and 125 patients per day, five days a week.

Yeah, busy practice, busy practice.

And I was very fortunate in that I had two MDs, two physical therapists, two massage therapists, two colon therapists, psychologists and acupuncturists and. And a homeopathic doctor in that facility. And I fortunately had a staff that enabled me to extend what I do throughout the state of California. It was many years ago.

Yeah, by the way. And we brought you back out because we need your help to treat the patient as a whole. Sounds like back then you were treating patients as a whole, not just their skeletals and stuff.

We were very fortunate in applying a lot of orthomolecular approaches to balancing the human body. We dealt a lot with nutrition. Obviously, dietary management didn't really focus on weight loss, but just people that had a weight problem. It came off. I did a lot of colon therapy, which I want to make a point here, with one of your supplements. At the time, I had in my clinics. The majority of my clinics were predicated on colon therapy because I wanted to remove the toxins. That was some 45 years ago. And I actually went before the state board to argue to keep colon therapy in chiropractic. I had reams and reams of research papers that I had compiled. And in the end we ended up losing that because one of our colleagues actually caused the death of a patient through colon therapy by administering too many colon therapies in a consecutive fashion. I believe it was 32 and there was an electrolyte balance. But be that as it may, had I known you at the time and with your insight and your ability. You've come up with a probiotic that answers the question of digestive problems, particularly constipation, balancing out, diarrhea, et cetera. The probiotic you have is essentially for the oral cavity, but I've applied it to my patients and I have than taking two to six tablets per day in order to balance. Once they achieve balance and they take one tablet at night and it normalizes the elimination process. And my hat's off to you. Kudos.

Oh, I'm glad. I'm very happy. Great. Yes, yes. We need to have good positive flora in order to function properly and eliminate toxins for sure. Because one of the sources, I think of stress, internal stress, when people maybe clench or grind, is if they're full of toxins, they're uncomfortable in their own body and they have high level of inflammation.

One of the the approaches I use through kinesiology is to determine the stress of an individual. And I have a unique approach to determining that. But what I found was that that stress affects the ileocecal valve. So you have the stomach, the duodenum, the jejunum, the ilium. The ilium is the end portion of a 30 foot tube that if you cut and lay it out across, you'll cover two football fields. There are villi within that structure that will capture nutrients after the digestive process. Now, what happens in a leaky gut syndrome is that the nutrients tend to go past the villi. There's some are captured or we wouldn't be here. So they capture some, but then we lose some of the nutrients because of leaky gut. So in addition to the probiotic that you put together, there is a function of the ileocecal valve that remains in an open position. So what happens is that material from the small intestine goes into the cecum, the ascending colon. And in this process, in individuals who are really stressed, or there's an imbalance in diet, whatever, we have to look at all these aspects. Material will go back, small amounts of material will go back into the small intestine and create constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, et cetera. There are five reflex points that I work and I teach the patients how to do this to themselves, to close that valve and get it to work properly. So that's another avenue that relates back to what we talked about. Stress.

Definitely, yes. And people who are stressed, oftentimes they go to the dentist and dental says, oh yeah, you need a night guard. Here it is, let's take an impression and fit it in. And one of the things that I want to talk to you about is upper or lower night guard. What do you prefer?

I prefer a lower night guard because in an upper, you tend to lock the palate, and the palate is essential for our breathing mechanism to occur properly, and we get enough oxygen into our lung fields. One of the things that I do there is a pulsometer that I use to check levels of oxygen. And I've tested people that put upper night guards in place, check their oxygen levels, note it, and then we switch to a lower night guard, check their oxygen levels, and the oxygen actually increases. So I'm all for an upper night guard if you're a boxer or if you're a martial artist or if you're an MMA athlete, which I've treated over the years. And. And I find that their breathing is actually limited. And you'll see individuals that wear an upper night guard that are really. They. Unless they're extremely gifted athletes, they tend to tank out halfway through their fight.

Oh.

And that's. I attribute that to the upper night guard being in place.

Makes sense. Yeah. And I remember learning this about the skull that we have the sutra line in the middle, that with every breath, it kind of microscopically, it's moving in and out.

Interesting you should mention that Janet Lavelle Travell. I'm sorry, Janet Travell was an MD out of ucla and her whole thing was trigger point therapy. But she was very interested in how the skull functions. So what she did was that she placed diagonally pins in the parietal crease and videotaped the individual taking breaths. And you can actually see a movement of the pin.

Interesting.

And I've yet to be able to find that book because she's gone now. She's been gone, I think, seven, eight years, maybe 10. And I can't find that book. But I did have it, and I did see it, and it was pretty amazing. So, yes, we as chiropractors knew this, but she proved it.

Incredible. Yeah. So once, let's say we make a lower night guard, at what point do you prefer to actually stabilize the cranial. The head and neck?

What I do is quite intense, so I want to do all of the cranial structures, put them in place prior to placing or getting a mold for the night guard. And you make an excellent night guard. I like the light one with. It's more like an Invisalign. Some of the night guards are quite bulky, and patients don't really like that. But I like to balance the entire cranial structure and work with the tmj. But in addition, I have to adjust the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, and I start from the feet and work up. So once all that is in place, because keep in mind that the vagus nerve communicates endocrine and spinal cord and we're all connected. And if you think about the myofascial function of the tongue, through its myofascial will actually connect all the way down to the foot, to the ankle. And if you're not able to do this with your tongue, then there's a problem and you may be tongue tied.

You can be a. Have a taco tongue.

Exactly.

Taco. I don't think I could do that. I have a practice, but I'll try.

So, getting back to your question, I like to balance the entire body and also look at the internal organs, because again, if you're dealing with the ileocecal valve, that could be Highway 101 and it's affecting the 405. So you have to balance the internal structures as well as the musculoskeletal structures, because we're all connected. We're not just one tooth, we're not just one jaw. Everything is connected neurologically. And that has to be taken into account before anything can be done to balance the jaw. Specifically.

Yes. And I have my own story with needing to be balanced weekly by you, because as a dentist and the way I work and I have to apply direct vision and I have to kind of tilt my head to the left and lean to the right and twist to their left and hold my elbow up high so I'm constantly out of balance. And unfortunately, the body just doesn't simply just go back.

Dentists are really prone to that kind of dysfunction. And it's what I call the reach around. When you have to reach around and twist and turn in order to. And I don't know how you do this, but you're amazing. I first read it. To be able to get in and work the teeth and do what you do is just. It's a work of art.

Contortionist.

Yes. So having said that, people, even in place of a night guard, people don't regard their stress levels physically, mentally, with regards to how it affects their body. They don't pay attention to that. And so we tend to sublimate. We push down all of our pain and irritation, inflammation. Well, it's fine today. Meanwhile, I can't move my neck and my shoulder is kind of out of place, and I can't Lift my arm, but I'll live with it. And that's where chiropractic comes in, where we're able to diagnose, evaluate, set up a treatment program, and then deal with the issues. It's like having a cavity in your shoulder and you're not taking care of it. Eventually it's going to become abscess.

Yes.

And in regards to the shoulder, it could be the tear of a bicepal tendon muscle in the rotator cuff. So all of these things have to be taken into consideration in order to achieve the true balance, because this is the most important joint in the body.

Yes. And speaking of a sore neck and a tight neck, what I notice is that when I wear my night guard, my neck is not so tight.

Good point. And if you recall, back in your office in Beverly Hills, I had individuals that I. You had me look at and evaluate, and I would demonstrate how the night guard would affect the balance of their neck. Because when it draws out, it affects the neck and the shoulder and whatever else is going on in the body. Now, what I did was to have them put their hand on my neck, and I would muscle test. They were connected to me and their arm would drop. I would place the night guard in my mouth and I couldn't move that arm.

Interesting. Yeah.

That's how important this joint is and how important it is that you contribute your knowledge to what you do.

Yeah. And I always think the importance about wearing a nightguard after the adjustments is that now with wearing the night guard, the jaw is a little bit open. It's not compressed and constricted. So at night, you can actually get the nutrients and the blood vessels actually nurture that jaw.

And you're absolutely correct. When that occurs, the disc, which is that linfinity sign, that figure 8, will actually go back in place. And if you've had a clicking or cracking of the jaw joint because of that placement of the disc, the improper placement, by wearing the night guard, you eliminate that to a degree. Now, some people will eliminate it totally, some will not. Maybe because there's an imbalance. Maybe there's a wisdom tooth that needs to be taken out. Again, I'm not a dentist, but through my connections that you established with me over the years, you've opened up my eyes to a lot of things on how the oral cavity is really the gateway to your health.

That's exactly what I say. Took the words right out of my mouth. Yeah. So any tips that you can give our listeners or home in order to kind of maybe stretch Their jaw, a lot of them are suffering from, like, tightness.

First thing is, look at your stress level. If you're in a job that is really draining you and you're not happy and you're looking to make a change, but you're hesitant, make that change. If you're on a high intake of sugar, you're eating a lot of carbs, you're gaining that middle age, spread, change your diet. So all of these things affect us. If you drink a 16 ounce bottle of Coke over a year, you'll gain 16 to 20 pounds just from that. So when you look at how diet affects you, then you need to adjust what you do from a dietary standpoint, an exercise standpoint, et cetera. But in addition to that, I have some exercises that your patients would be very interested in. So I'm going to demonstrate those to you.

I. Okay.

Now, the first exercise that we're going to do is to take your tongue and place it behind your two top front teeth. Then the next thing you're going to do with the tongue in place is you're going to move your lower jaw up and down. That's not easy, and you have to practice this because not everyone can do that. Now, that's the first exercise. The second exercise is you're going to take the tip of your tongue and place it on the inside of your upper molar and premolar.

One side or another.

Okay, one side. And then you're going to do the same thing. Open and close your jaw. Now you do these exercises for 30. For the count of 30. After you complete that side, you go to the opposite side. Same thing. That's the second exercise. The third exercise is you're going to take your tongue and jut it forward. So I'm going to do a side view so you can see what it is. Jut your jaw forward, then you bring it back and then you go to the side so you're actually tilting the jaw to the left and to the right. So again, it's forward, back, side. And try to do that 30 times. The fourth exercise is you're going to have to be in a hermetically sealed room with no witnesses. And it has to be soundproof because you're going to make a face and a sound and it goes like this. And what you're doing is you're getting all of the muscles to work synergistically to combine with the three prior exercises to hold the jaw in place once it's been adjusted. But even if it hasn't been adjusted, it Will make a difference in how you function, how you talk, how you eat, how you sleep.

Thank you. Those are great exercises. I already feel my jaw loosening up because I can feel a little pop on my left side. So I'm thinking I needed that. Exactly.

So.

And we exercise, like, pretty much our whole body, but we really don't exercise our face or our jaw. Like, rarely, we stretch our neck and do all these exercises.

And speaking of the neck, there's another exercise that we can do to alleviate the tension. For example, if your range of motion, where you tape your head and you turn to the left and you're restricted, and you're only going about 25 to 30 degrees, if that, and you turn to the right and it's about the same thing, you go. You try to extend your head back, and you can't go very far because it's restricted. You come forward and still restrictive. How are you going to clear that? You're going to clear it simply by taking your. You can take your hand or you can take a soft ball, maybe a basketball wrapped in cloth or a towel, put it against the wall, and you're going to actually push your forehead and hold it to the count of 10. Release. Go to the side and push to the side. Hold for the count of 10. Release. Go to the opposite side, push, hold for the count of 10. Release. Then place your hands or get on the ball and push back and hold for the count of 10. What is that going to do that's not going to increase your motion dramatically? Right and left extension, flexion. So those are simple exercise you can do at home.

Excellent.

And, you know, you want to combine that with whatever Pilates or yoga that you're doing, which, incidentally speaking of yoga, there's a way to handle your stress. Would you like to see?

Sure.

Okay. What you want to do is to take your foot, your right foot, and place it over your left foot. You're going to take your left hand, put it out, take your right hand and go over it, bring it under your chin, close your eyes and count to 120. Why 120? Because you're taking that time. It's going to be two minutes. To help to balance all of your energy points, all of your chakras, from your. The top of your head all the way down to your reproductive organs. That will alleviate a tremendous amount of stress. Keep in mind that energy comes in on the left, goes out on the right. By taking your hands and doing this with your hands and putting your right foot. It's Always right over left. Once you do this, you're capturing that energy flow. And this is an old yoga posture. There was a tome this thick written by two out of work psychologists and this is what I got out of it.

All right, that's a good one. Great insight. So I know you have a website where people can read more about you. MedicalMedium. Dr. C dot com.

Yes.

Or visit us at Beverly Hills Dental Health and Wellness. So you can treat them.

You have an excellent, beautiful facility staffed by professional, courteous people that adore you. And we want to be able to provide an excellent service which you initiated. And I would invite anyone that views this podcast to give your office a call and I'd like to meet them.

Excellent. Yeah, I think they will all benefit tremendously for what you have to diagnose and treat.

Thank you. And together we can help a lot of people.

Yes. So let's say today, quick tip. I would say if you're clenching, have jaw pain, headaches that are frequent, definitely go to the dentist or come to us so we can diagnose you for a night guard.

And I the last parting comment here is that not all dentists are familiar with what Dr. Moldovan does. And I've been working with her for years and she has it down. She knows exactly how to approach the problem. So if you really want a good dental appliance done correctly, come see Dr.

Muller and Dr. Kunal so you can balance people out. Thank you very much for being our holistic dentistry show. You've been very informative.

Thank you for the opportunity and I appreciate you very much and I would look forward to many more continued years of collaboration.

Same here. Same here. See you next time.

Bye bye.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram rsonda. This is Dr. Sandha and remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.