Ask our staff.

Neuromuscular Dentistry

Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, Oakleaf, Orange Park

Neuromuscular dentistry takes a wider perspective on your dental health than just looking at your teeth and gums. It looks also at your bite – the way your upper and lower teeth meet – and at the jaw joints along with their muscles and nerves.

You can feel your jaw joints by placing a finger in front of each ear and opening your mouth. These are ball-and-socket joints with the lower jaw “knob” rotating in the upper jaw socket. A cartilage pad protects each bone surface from rubbing against the other one, which would be painful.

If your jaw joints are out of alignment, they can gradually cause your teeth to move out of alignment; and the opposite is also true: if your teeth are misaligned, they can slowly put your jaw joints out of alignment.

Temporomandibular joint disorder

Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) is the name for misaligned jaw joints. It is a painful condition that can cause long-term deterioration of your dental health, failing restorations, migraine-like headaches, and a variety of seemingly unrelated symptoms.

As a neuromuscular dentist, Dr. Blankenship can diagnose and correct TMD, relieving you of your pain and improving your dental health.

Dr. Blankenship is a Fellow of the Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies (LVI). LVI is the premier post-graduate dental school, where dentists from all over the world learn the most advanced techniques in neuromuscular and cosmetic dentistry.

Neuromuscular and cosmetic dentistry

Being both a cosmetic dentist and a neuromuscular dentist, Dr. Blankenship will have your smile’s beauty in mind when he plans your neuromuscular work, and your smile’s health in mind when he plans your cosmetic work. He will correct health problems before moving on to cosmetic dentistry procedures, as good dental health is the foundation of an attractive smile.

When your teeth work correctly with the opposing teeth, you will not be putting undue force or pressure on your dental restorations and they will be longer-lasting.

To learn more about the benefits of neuromuscular dentistry, please read our page about Migraines and TMD Headaches.

Please call or email us today to schedule your neuromuscular dentistry consultation. Our office serves the Ponte Vedra and Jacksonville, Florida areas, and we hope to meet with you soon.