Teeth Intro (2015)

I first started noticing jaw-related issues in 2011. I hadn’t fully figured out or connected all the issues at the time of writing this post in 2015, and it doesn’t represent my current thinking or recommendations. Still, it serves as a useful record to look back on and it’s nice to see some of my vague hunches corroborated by things I’ve found out as recently as this year.

This blog follows my progress, and related thoughts, as I try to realign my teeth and correct my posture.

## Current Strategy

Head-neck alignment seems to be what is required. I'm not sure that it's the root of the problem -- if I had to guess I would say it was secondary to tooth misalignment -- but I think it could definitely be the basis of the solution.

From day 8 (2015.7.7) I am trying to flex at the pelvis as I walk, and concentrate more on moving my thighs than where my feet are going. This feels weird, but not as bad as concentrating on my feet.

I am now mostly concentrating on general alignment, symmetry, and being conscious of my whole outer left side, from my armpit to my foot. (2015.7.17).

## Why am I doing this?

My top and bottom teeth don't align properly, so that when I bite down the bottom jaw has to veer to the left slightly to meet my top teeth comfortably. It's as though the top teeth are from a face which is facing just a few degrees to the left of where my actual face is looking.

The situation has been exacerbated by the emergence of my wisdom teeth, which moved the rest of my teeth forward in the direction of misalignment.

I can eat and talk fine and my teeth aren't painful in any way; I just have a gut feeling that their misalignment has subtle knock-on effects on the alignment of the rest of my body, and that my life would be mildly improved if they fit together better. I can remember the feeling of closing my mouth and having my teeth connect properly without any thought or effort, and I have a vague sense that I could finally relax, or something, if I could get that again.

There is an interesting TED talk by this guy who was in a car accident, and he explains how a big part of his recovery was having his temporo-mandibular joint properly aligned: [see below] (starts where he starts talking about the teeth, but the rest is worth watching as well).

Link to mentioned YouTube video: Simon Lewis: Don’t take consciousness for granted.

It didn’t occur to me until I was told in March 2023 that my jaws might just be too small. In fact, since I blamed the forward movement and narrowing caused by the emergence of my wisdom teeth for some of the problem, I actually wanted to retract my arches as well as widen them back out. This would have been insanity; looking at it now I can clearly see that I have moderate forward and lateral deficiency. Just goes to show the value of a competent professional opinion – and the power of compensatory forward head posture to confuse the issue.