Please help with TMD diagnoses
Long time lurker here. I’m 3 years into practice and one of the least understood yet pervasive issue I run into day in and day out is TMJ pain coupled with some form of moderate-advanced wear on dentition. I’ve looked into my textbooks (mainly Dawson and Dawson adjacent literature) on how to even begin diagnosing patients given the wide umbrella of TMD. One thing that I’m having a hard time reconciling is the analogue work up that includes taking physical records for stone models and mounting on articulators that I’ve not even SEEN since leaving school.
CR exists as an elusive concept and dentists seem to just sweep severely worn dentition under the rug, prescribing splints when the etiology hasn’t been identified. I can’t even lie, I’ve gotten caught in this cycle too but something in the back of my mind knows that’s a fundamental key to successful treatment. Please help. I’m so lost at how to even start implementing it in practice.
Side note: I do work for a smaller DSO and it’s so fast paced that I don’t know how to begin inserting these conversations/evaluations into our practice.