Unlocking the Jaw: How Holistic Dentists and Chiropractors Collaborate to Treat TMJ 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. Welcome to today's show. Today I have with me Dr. Kanol, medical medium and this amazing chiropractor. I don't know what to call you nowadays.

Thank you.

So thank you for being here. I want to chat with you today about the importance of taking CT scans, because you and I have been working together now for a few years, and I think we both have seen the difference with CT scans and the difference it makes in people's lives. So in our office, we take a dental CT scan, but the dental CT scan actually encompasses the tmj. We can actually see the airway, we can see the upper jaw, the lower jaw, the sinuses, the throat, and evaluate really thoroughly oral health, not just using the regular two dimensional X rays.

This reminds me of a patient that I referred to you, and I want to get into that because it underscores the necessity of a proper diagnosis, of proper evaluation, and a diagnosis, subsequent diagnosis. So I'm going back some years and one of my patients had fallen, and she was in her 90s at the time, had fallen and hit her face, left side of her face, and came to me and I, I examined her and I said, your jaw is out of place, I'll put it back in place. And adjusted her spine, et cetera. And then about two weeks later, she complained of pain in her tooth on that same side. So I said, let me take you to your dentist. She had a dentist near her home. So I took her and he took an X ray and said, oh, tooth is fine.

You mean a regular dental two dimensional?

Exactly, yes, regular two dimensional. So it didn't sound right to me. So I said, look, let me take you to Dr. Moldovan and have her do a proper evaluation. So what Dr. Moldovan did was to take a CT scan of that area and encompassing all of the other structures. And she called me into the office and said, look at this. And there was this area that denoted what appeared to be a sack of fluid. And she proceeded to remove the tooth that was bothering her because it had impacted that area had gone into the sinus cavity. And when she did, it was like she opened up the floodgates and all of this pus came out of that area. Had she not done the CT scan, we would have missed that. And this woman would have died earlier.

Definitely. Especially for an elderly patient. I remember she was in her 80s or 90s.

She's in the 90s.

In her 90s, yes. I remember her. Even though it's been a few years, how big this abscess was and how on a regular dental X ray, couldn't see anything. That's why the dentist said everything's fine. The unfortunate part is that the standard of care is not a CT scan when you have a toothache. It's a regular two dimensional X rays. And studies show that only about 50% of the problems can be depicted on these little tiny two dimensional X rays. But for me now, I've been using a CT scan, I want to say, for the last 10 years and I literally can't do without it. We've had CT scan technology in dentistry since I was a resident back in 2001. But back then the CT scan technology was expensive. It was like a quarter of a million dollars just to get one in the office. Today it's not so. So I really think so many more dentists could benefit by having a CT scan in their office. For us, we have a CT scan in all three locations in Newport Beach, Beverly Hills and Encino. Because I can't have a conversation with somebody, they tell me they have pain and just give them 50% of the story. That's not why they came to me.

Can't do that. And what happens, what I've seen is that, and this is not a denigration of dentistry, but it's just a standard of care. And so when you have someone go into the dental office and they take an X ray and say, it's fine, take this pill, you'll be okay. Can't do that. That's why CT scans are so important and I recommend them specifically for tmj. But then we need to find out what's going on with all of the other teeth.

Absolutely. But going to tmj, it's like when you and I work together and we talked about in a previous episode how we treat tmj. I like to take a CT scan to see where the disc is and then we get a radiology report. How is the joint? Are there osteophytes in there or things that are compressing the joint or is the position of the disc been displaced? All these kinds of things are so important to know prior to a night guard.

You can't evaluate that correctly with two dimensional View, it has to be CT scan because osteophytic formation, damage to the disc, damage to the condyle, which sits just above the mandible, that contributes to a lot of problems and ongoing, continually pain.

Definitely. And people that are coming to us in pain, we need to figure out, exactly, scientifically speaking, where is the pain coming from? Is it a damaged disc? Is it something that we can't see? Is it the joint itself? Is it not enough space? What's happening?

Exactly. And so that's the physical aspect. Then you have to look at the mental aspect. What kind of stress is the patient under? What kind of trauma? What kind of head trauma? I have patients that had head trauma as a toddler and as a teenager that they had for years and they came to me in their 50s and 60s and I diagnosed them and I said, this happened back when you were a toddler. I don't remember that. I said you were there. Yeah, but it's often overlooked and missed because the standard of care, in my opinion, just my opinion, I'm not a dentist, is not what it should be. And the CT scan is just an extremely excellent way to determine what your care is going to do for that patient. Because you've now opened up everything that could possibly be wrong.

Exactly. And some patients have, oh, you know what, I'm afraid of radiation. But in fact, the digital cone beam CT scans that we have today has much less radiation, a 50th of the old medical CT scans. And to tell you the truth, I think most patients are getting radiation from their cell phones than they are from the dental CT scan, not only from.

The cell phones, but if you're flying at 32,000ft, you're getting radiation in that atmosphere as well. When you talk about the cell phones, but we're surrounded by TV monitors, we're surrounded by laptops, Kindle G towers, 5G towers, it's all around us. Yes, we should be talking away from the phone and not having it here because it's going to affect this part of the brain, which is the hippocampus, which affects our cognition and our ability to have long term memory. And so when you put that phone up here, you're affecting that and you're reducing the amount of volume in the brain because of it. And it could potentially lead to other medical issues that could have been avoided.

Yeah, absolutely. That with trauma that you mentioned earlier. Also a big thing that I'm looking at, a CT scan is cavitations. Cavitations. For those of you that don't know are areas of necrotic bone inside the jawbone that could be due to trauma, could be due from an extraction or all gone bad. And it's very important to diagnose these areas so we can treat them properly to decrease inflammation in the body.

Not only that. And you're a master when it comes to treating cavitations. I've had patients go to you that have had tremendous results from what you do. But I also have a patient that I referred to you that had a lot of bad surgical interventions work that was done that affected the bone. And these things are not something that you can clear up overnight. It takes time. You've been working on this patient for over two years. She has recovered dramatically. She was in tremendous pain. When she came to me, I balanced her energies. I balanced her jaw, balanced her cranials, I balanced her spine and got her out of pain temporarily. I said, this is out of my expertise. I can't do this. That's when I referred her to you. And because of the CT scan and what you were able to do with your training has brought her back to a normal life.

Yes, I know who you're talking about. I'm happy that after two years, it really. Her treatment take two years. And it's very common to take that long, Especially when somebody is already super sensitive or maybe they're already suffering from chronic fatigue. We have to take it in steps. And for her, she also had some misplaced implants that are up here on the upper front teeth. And there was a prosthesis that was placed chronically crossing the midline. For her, it triggered headaches almost every day. Not in the beginning of the day, actually. As she was going through the day, she just said she felt like she wanted to rip her teeth out of her mouth. That's basically what she said. And then I introduced her to the notion that we try not to cross the midline. So we actually built her a prosthesis that doesn't cross the midline. But I had to redo the implants and everything. But she. We finally got her to a state where she can live free of headaches, free of pain, and have more energy, better life. Yeah. And that's really what it is about is why do you go to a holistic dentist to you to a medical medium. So for your quality of life. That's really what we're here for. Yeah. Yeah.

There's so much that the oral cavity contributes to either good health or bad health. And again, not a dentist. But my connection to what you do has taught me a lot with misplaced implants, improper diagnostic approaches, crowns that hide cavities, fracture lines, osteochondritis that occurs between the gum and the. The jawbone from the amount of stress that you're under. So you've taught me a lot and opened my eyes to how important the oral cavity is to the maintenance of good health in the body.

Yeah.

Thank you for that.

Yes, you're welcome. When it comes to sleep apnea, I want to mention one thing that we use a CT scan for is really looking at the airway, because the airway itself is so important in how well we sleep at night. And if your tunnel falls in the back of the throat and it basically obstructs the airway, then you're not getting enough oxygen at night, and you can potentially. I think the risk of dying early is 47%. Those are the statistics. So it's really important to have some, like a dentist, look at your CT scan of the airways to see if you have enough volume in the area, if you're snoring, if you're waking up with headaches, if you're waking up tired. These are all reasons to do a CT scan of the airway.

Yeah, it's. It's an overlooked area. I think it's being recognized more and more now. But you were ahead of the curve many years ago, and you were able to diagnose a lot of the sleep apnea with your patients, which helped my patients. And it's an overlooked area. And that's why it is so important to have a CT scan where you have an approach, multifaceted approach, to determine the correct state of health of that patient.

Absolutely. So the standard of care is getting a CT scan for all of you who maybe have had wisdom teeth extracted, have a trauma, root canal teeth, even periodontal disease, or maybe shifting of teeth, TMJ pain. So pretty much for everyone.

Exactly. And one of the other things that amazed me about your practice is that you have an oral test kit for bugs in the mouth. And I was amazed at what people don't know that they carry. And the testing that you did came up with parasites, amoeba bacteria. This is from improper dental care. And you school a lot of my patients and how to take care of their teeth. And it's very important. So in addition to the CT scan, I would highly recommend this testing kit that you have.

Yes, thank you. I agree. Great. It's been a pleasure chatting with you today.

Thank you so much. It's my pleasure.

You can find Dr. Kurnal at our office, Beverly Hills Dental Health and Wellness or medical medium. Dr. C dot com.

Thank you so much.

See y' all next time. 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'd 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. DoctorsAnda. 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.