This was a fun one. A long time patient comes in with hip pain. She has been on Invisalign type braces for around 20 weeks. Starting to get some left hip pain.
Sure enough, when I did my exam I found her left leg has neurological weakness. No wonder she has hip pain.
I have her take the Invisalign on her top teeth out. No change.
I have her take the lower one out and she gets all her strength back. Okay, we have narrowed the problem down.
But the strength doesn’t stay for very long so I know I need to dig a little deeper.
Turns out it was just one tooth that had been jammed in the socket.
You can see the tooth below at the arrow. She is wearing the braces top and bottom.
This tooth was jammed in its socket and needed to be adjusted to correct hip pain.
She told me the exact tooth I found had started to bother her about 3 weeks earlier. Each week she puts in a new set of braces as her teeth shift. The last few trays had been particularly tough on her. More teeth pain.
My guess is the tray from 3 weeks prior had put some pressure on that tooth in an awkward manner. You can see in the picture above, the current braces aren’t even touching that tooth. There is a gap between the tooth and the plastic.
Once I adjusted the tooth, the leg strength returned and her pain went away.
And, the tooth was no longer sensitive to touch.
Fun story, isn’t it!
She said her friends just don’t understand! Their question was….
“You went to a chiropractor 1.5 hours away to get your tooth adjusted to fix your hip pain??”
Believe me, I get it. But let’s think about this….
We have all bit on something hard unexpectedly. You are just minding your own business when there is a pit in that olive.
Now think back to that moment. Your ENTIRE body responded to that insult.
Your head jerked away. Your arms probably flailed. Your body leaned back. One leg planted firmly in the ground while the other probably took a step back.
All from biting on a pit or something hard.
It’s the withdrawal reflex. Your body is programmed to remove itself from a threat as fast as possible.
Now imagine that same type of stimulus is happening ALL THE TIME. Like a tooth that is jammed in the socket.
The same nerves are being stimulated, just on a lower level and constantly. The withdrawal reflex is sending signals throughout the body signaling danger.
These are things that can be fixed, but you have to understand what you are looking at.
How many adjustments would she have needed to correct this? How many exercises would have been prescribed? Pain killers? Muscle relaxers?
You get the point.
Note: I am not against Invisalign or any of the other types of braces whether wire or plastic. This post isn’t to suggest these are bad. They serve their purpose, but we need to be aware of what is happening to the rest of the body while our teeth are being straightened.
And in a case like this it was a simple fix. She doesn’t need to ditch the braces, she just needed a tooth adjusted that probably had an awkward pressure on it at some point.
If you are an orthodontist reading this, we can work together to bring about better patient outcomes.
I love this!! As a retired nurse I too often see how our conventional medicine doesn’t work or make sense. Thank you for these words of wisdom and hope.
And I wouldn’t say it’s just medicine. We can get tunnel vision as chiropractor’s as well. Not many are looking to adjust a tooth.
How did you adjust her tooth? im curious bc I’m having neck, shoulder and back pain all on the left side and I’m curious if it has to do with pressure being put on my top back molars (one of them has a crown on it). I’m desperate and no dentist will listen to me. I live in FL
I forgot to mention that I have Invisalign right now as well.
That isn’t something I can just describe how to do on yourself. You have to know which direction the tooth is stuck. Or if it’s even a tooth to begin with. Yes, a dentist most likely won’t understand. You need somebody who understands the skull moves, and the teeth are joints. Crowns pose another problem as well.