We use cookies and other tools to enhance your experience on our website and to analyze our web traffic.
For more information about these cookies and the data collected, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

DrTonySoileau

DrTonySoileau
Joined Sep 2016
DrTonySoileau
Joined Sep 2016
  1. Do you have any ideas what might be causing the problem? As a general answer I would say poor nerve health. Muscles are controled by nerves. If the nerves are not active (means turned off, not dead) then the muscle looses tone and activity. I have a few patients with Myasthenia Gravis that are getting amazing result from seeing a chiropractor to specializes in nerve health. Consider going to this website and finding a chiropractor trained in http://quantumneurology.com/. Might make a world of difference for you. I have found that the medical community in my area does not have very good answers for Myasthenia. But Dr Cormier who is trained in quantum neurology gets really good results by "turning the nerves back on".

  2. Do you think it would be a good idea to have a second opinion from a Sleep Medicine specialist? My doctor is wonderful but seems to be at a loss for what is happening. Yes. I always agree with second opinions when a patient hits a road block.

  3. Would a mandibular device cause the same facial fatigue that the boil and bite mouth guard and the Good Morning Snore Solution cause? Maybe. But the question is what the true cause. Is the fatigue truly being caused by the appliance or do you have a problem with the trigeninal nerve (facial nerve) and the movement of your jaw forward is shutting down the nerve because its not healthy? I would still suggest getting a dental appliance if you dont want to wear a CPAP. Getting air into your lungs is always a first thought.

Hope I helped a little. Good questions. Just hard to give great answers to them. Let me know your thoughts.

Dr Tony

Jaw problems with mouth pieces is common. But its not the mouth piece causing the problem. Lets look at a similar situation. You throw out your knee playing football. Tear ligaments, Chip cartilage. Its a mess. So you go to an orthopedic surgeon. He says yeah I can go in an repair everything and your going to need physical therapy for a few months so the supporting muscles, ligaments and tendons let the knee JOINT heal and return to its full range of movement and motion. Make sense and you expected there would be some physical therapy or the knee JOINT would be stiff and sore and take a longer time to heal after the surgery. The same issues occur when treating sleep apnea with a dental appliance. Sleep apnea causes an increase in cortisol, rapid chest breathing, poor sleep, etc. This is the cause of a lot of TMJ dyfunction (jaw problems) which is a JOINT similar to your knee. And if its not the true cause sleep apnea certainly make it worse. Half my practice is sleep apnea and TMJ dydfunction therapy. I have yet to see a sleep apnea patient in 20 years of practice that did not have a lot of teeth wear. This means their muscles have been squeezing their jaw JOINT together way too hard for way too long! The muscles are not supporting the jaw JOINT anymore and are part of the problem. Now you decide to go to your dentist and get an appliance for sleep apnea. The appliance simply brings the jaw forward to about where you bite through a sandwich. Maybe a little more or little less. The muscles should have no problem with the jaw being brought to this position. But the muscles are not healthy any more. And you may not realize it because you don't get head aches and you didn't make the connection between broken teeth and sleep apnea. So the appliance brings your jaw forward and sure enough the JOINT says OUCH!!!! Your muscles need therapy. Just now you know it. Its not the appliances fault. As I said my office is different because I treat both dental patients and sleep apena patients equally. So I have a massage therapist that works for me full time trained to use trigger point therapy, acupressure, and yoga stretches to get the muscles back loose and moving. I have a chiropractor that specializes in nerve heath that comes to my office every Tuesday to get all the muscles working together again. So we start with a lot of jaw problems but quickly solve them. Most dental practices will not have "muscle therapy" options other than tensing. So you may have to find therapy for your muscles on your own. But ask your dentist about it first. For some of my patients with really sore jaws we slow down how fast I bring their jaw forward to give the massage therapist and chiropractor time to get the muscles and tendons back in shape. Usually just a couple of weeks for the really bad cases.

So for the long response. Hope I explained it oK.

Dr Tony