SUMMARY
The health of the teeth and gums can play a role in TMJ disorders by influencing the stability of the bite and the postural tonus of the jaw muscles. Gum massage is important, and clay is healthier than most toothpastes.
DENTAL HEALTH AND BITE STABILITY
Dental disease can destabilize a bite by causing teeth to shift. A cavity on one side of a tooth can cause the neighboring tooth to tip into the space, which causes the opposite side of that neighboring tooth to tip upward in a way that interferes with the bite. Gum disease can shift a tooth by changing the shape of its bony socket. Bite instability then reflexively increases jaw muscle tonus, because the teeth form a joint between the upper and lower jawbones, and joints are wired with protective reflexes that respond to any noxious sensory input by increasing the tonus in the muscles which cross that joint.
ORAL MICROBIOME
Preventing dental and periodontal disease requires cleaning your teeth after you eat, massaging your gums frequently, and getting good routine dental care. The goal is not to sterilize your mouth or kill as many germs as possible, but to grow and maintain a healthy oral microbiome which protects your tissues from pathogens much like a healthy garden prevents weeds. Your oral microbiome health is affected not just by how often you brush and floss, but also by what you eat, how much stimulation your gums receive, and your overall state of health.
CAVITIES
Cavities occur on the biting surfaces and the spaces between teeth when bacteria digest sugars in plaque and trapped food, producing acid which eats holes in the enamel and dentin, primarily during the first two decades of life. Cavities at the gumlines and root surfaces often occur later in life when older people undergo dry mouth (common side effects of drugs), which prevents saliva from rinsing away the acids created by bacteria in plaque.
GUM DISEASE
In adulthood, mouths become more alkaline (less acidic), and they tend to deposit minerals to form calculus (tartar) rather than dissolving minerals to form cavities. The gums of older people recede far from the bite table, leaving large spaces where food gets trapped and where plaque (the white paste of flour and water) can accumulate at the gumlines and between the teeth. When plaque remains undisturbed, it picks up minerals from saliva and hardens to form a crusty structure much like a coral reef - with tunnels and crypts where bacteria can hide. This calculus is the material that your dentist scrapes off your teeth when you get them cleaned. Keeping the gums healthy requires removing all plaque daily so it can't form calculus.
Keeping the gums healthy also requires massage. Our gums evolved getting rhythmically compressed and released from chewing tough food. Also, the bite table where the forces were generated stayed close to the gums, because the teeth wore down as the gums receded. Each chew compressed the gums, which pumped out the old blood, followed by a release of pressure, which let in new blood. Today, most of our food is too soft to provide much massage from chewing, and any tough chewing that we undertake occurs too far from the receeded gums to provide the massage they need.
RUBBER TIPS - The best way to recreate healthy gum massage is by using rubber tips. These little pointed cones were on the end of every toothbrush for the better part of a century, until they were removed for marketing reasons - they last too long. Now they must be purchased separately. Teeth are like glass, and this little cone of rubber cleans them like a squeege cleans a windshield. It should be rubbed along the gumline from one tooth to the next and pushed into the space between each pair of teeth until it briefly blanches the gums. The gums turn white when they lose the old blood, and they turn pink again when new blood flows back in to replenish them. In this manner, massage provides a circulatory pump for the gums.
BRUSHING provides massage as well as cleaning. Stiff toothbrushes were removed from the market decades ago, because dentists mistakenly believed that the gumline defects at the corners of the mouth (canine and first premolar areas) were due to excessive scrubbing, which would be difficult with a soft toothbrush. Now we now know that these gumline defects are usually not caused by scrubbing. They are caused by bending of the teeth at the top of the socket popping out little pieces of the thin brittle enamel from the area between the base of the crown and the top of the root.
FLOSSING is one way (along with bristle brushes and water picks) to remove food that has become stuck between adjacent teeth. If you have areas in your mouth that trap food when you eat, which becomes increasingly common after childhood, you need to find a way to get the food out shortly afterwards. You cannot wait until you brush your teeth before bed, or you'll get gum disease or a cavity.
TOOTHPASTE
Most toothpaste contains an abrasive, flouride, a foaming agent, and a sweetener. Abrasives help scour the surfaces, flouride is one of the minerals that helps harden the surfaces of teeth, and foaming agents make your mouth feel clean. Some toothpastes also contain herbs and essential oils or whitening agents. Salt and baking soda help prevent cavities, because they buffer the acids that microbes produce to drill holes through the enamel.
CLAY
Bentonite clay is a good alternative to toothpaste. It is sufficiently abrasive, and it contains flouride in about the same proportions it exists in the earth. In fact, the amount of daily flouride that prevents dental decay is similar to the amount that our ancestors received daily just from their food and water. The minerals in a typical sample of bentonite clay are listed below:
OUR NEED FOR TRACE MINERALS - Some of these minerals are important for our health. All living things evolved on this big rock with the constant presence of the same almost 100 minerals in all water and food, and they could absorb whichever minerals they needed for physiologic functions. Today we know of our need for about 8 or 10 trace minerals, mostly from experiments which go to extremes to deprive lab rats of one or another. Companies then extract those 8 or 10 trace minerals from the big rock, package them in pills or capsules, and sell them to you. However, it's much cheaper and very likely much healthier to simply consume the trace minerals you need in their natural balance, which probably facilitates their absorption. We know that some minerals (like calcium) cannot be absorbed without the presence of other minerals. Clay provides the trace minerals for which we understand the need, as well as those for which we don't yet understand the need, in the balance from which our bodies were designed to absorb them.
Some toothpastes contain clay, usually mixed with herbs and/or essential oils. However, bentonite clay can be most easily used in powder form. Just dip a wet brush into a bowl of powdered clay, and brush with it. Afterwards, you can swallow it. Even if you spit it out, you'll still get all your needed trace minerals. After all, they're TRACE minerals. A lifetime supply of clay is cheap and requires no packaging.
KEEPING YOUR ORAL APPLIANCE CLEAN
If you wear an oral appliance every night, you should leave it soaking in clean water all day to prevent it from building up the hard crust that you can see on most old appliances. This crust is made of minerals from saliva that became deposited on your appliance each time it dried out. It's the same material that the dentist scrapes off your teeth during a cleaning, and it's the last thing you want to put in your mouth every night. One way to prevent it from accumulating on your appliance is to keep your appliance from drying out with saliva on it.
DISINFECTING - your appliance by soaking it in something that kills bacteria should be done daily or at least weekly. Denture cleaners, which include bleach, baking soda, and citric acid to remove stains, are available at all drug stores. Alternatively, you can soak your appliance in any type of mouthwash, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, or even vodka. To your health!