Gnathology

What is gnathology

Gnathology is the branch of dentistry that studies and treats, in all anatomo-functional aspects, the masticatory system.

There is a close correlation between the proper contact between the two dental arches, the mandibular muscles and the cranio-mandibular bones; gnathology is precisely concerned with studying and restoring the proper balance between these districts by resolving the resulting symptomatology.

What does gnathology treat ?

Joint Disorders
temporomandibular joint (TMD)

The term temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJD) encompasses a variety of situations involving the muscles of mastication and the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), as well as neighboring tissue components. The most common symptom associated with TDM is localized pain in the muscles of mastication, the preauricular area, and/or the temporomandibular joints (TMJ) and may be due to trauma (to the face), inflammatory or degenerative arthritis, or the jaw being pushed out of position when the patient chews or swallows. Sometimes, the chewing muscles around the temporomandibular joint can go into spasm, causing head and neck pain and difficulty opening the mouth. Patients may also have limited or asymmetric mouth opening and joint noises that are described as joint cliks, crackles, or pops.

Bruxism : symptoms, causes and treatment

Teeth grinding: the psychosomatic point of view

From a psychosomatic point of view, teeth grinding is an unconscious attempt to discharge a surplus of psychic tension, a share of anxiety or stress that has accumulated during the day and that the subject tends not to express. Emotions are denied and silenced during the day and then reoccur in a more controlled and less dangerous context: sleep.

Teeth grinding in sleep: how to find out

Very often sufferers do not know this, at least until they are forced to look for the causes of one or more bothersome symptoms that persist over time, the most frequent of which is a morning awakening with widespread sensations of pain in the jaws. It may be accompanied by enlarged lymph nodes in the neck, the onset during the day of headache or migraine, sudden twinges in the temples, tension in the back of the neck, poor digestion, and halitosis. Symptoms referable to even very different pathologies, but which upon careful medical-dental analysis can be traced back, if this is the case, to a phenomenon called bruxism: a widespread disorder characterized by the fact that during nighttime sleep one either grinds one’s teeth or, but the two can be co-present, clenches one’s jaws for a prolonged time, either in a sleeping or waking state.

The dental examination is crucial: in fact, it signals excessive wear of the teeth (especially molars and premolars, whose cusps appear worn out) in relation to age and due to improper use of the dental arches, and also a weakening of the teeth themselves, which become somewhat mobile and sometimes move from their seat. But although the “bruxist” tends to underestimate the problem, it actually needs to be taken seriously, not only to avoid dental problems but because the causes are psychological and affect the entire quality of life. In fact, bruxism expresses, in a completely involuntary form, a strong state of emotional tension that holds back.

Therapy of orofacial pain (facial, neck and muscle-tensive headaches)

Choosing the right specialist. Ideally, a gnathologist, a dentist who specializes in chewing problems, will perform one of the following therapies :