Jessica Locke

Whenever a new client shows up at the door with migraine headaches as their issue, I ask whether or not they had braces on their teeth at any point in their life.  The answer is yes 99 times out of 100.  I know that I will find extremely tight muscles throughout the head, neck and upper back, and the origin of their tightness shows up in the stress around the teeth.  There are all kinds of braces used on teeth, in conjunction with extraction, moving teeth over, and probably one of the most horrific processes being performed on children/adolescents is the attempt to re-position the jaw to change the bite.

The delicate balance of natural inherent human coordination is centered approximately where the temporal mandibular joint occurs.  Any attempt to change that alignment will produce all kinds of problems.  Ordinary braces can and do affect that alignment.  The restriction of the muscles throughout the head and neck don’t stop there; it travels down the back and produces mal-coordination of the hip and lower back, which in turn can affect the knees, and the way the feet meet the ground.

I had a case wherein jaw re-positioning was done when the client was in her teens.  Teeth had been pulled, and other teeth had been ground down to make her bite “fit.”  In her 20’s, the migraines appeared, to such a massive degree of pain she was having difficulty sustaining employment.  Her doctor ultimately told her it was all in her mind.  It took two years of Alexander lessons and working in tandem with a chiropractor and new dentist to restore the original alignment.  This allowed her to finally function with fewer headaches, and now, ten years later, migraines are no longer an issue.

In my opinion, putting a child in braces while they are in the process of growing should be avoided if at all possible.  And if you must do it, please get your child to an Alexander teacher, chiropractor, or cranial-sacral therapist during the process.  This will help offset the negative effects of this intrusive dental work.