The Approach
Teeth to Toes: Why We Look at All of You
Most TMJ and TMD treatment asks one question: where does it hurt? We ask a different one: what is loading the system? The answer is often not in the jaw at all.
Rule One
The Body Is One System
Your bite, your jaw joints, the muscles that close them, your airway and the way you hold your head all load each other. You cannot read one without the others, and you cannot treat one without moving the others. A dentist can balance a bite to a few microns and still lose the case, because the bite sits on a neck, the neck sits on a pelvis, and a nervous system decides what all of it means.
Rule Two
Your Next Breath Comes First
Getting the next breath is the body's first priority, awake or asleep. Everything else — where the jaw rests, where the tongue sits, how the head is carried — is arranged around it. When breathing is hard, the body borrows from the jaw and the neck to make it easier. It works. That is the problem: a compensation that works becomes a habit, and a habit becomes a posture, a bite, and eventually a symptom.
The Chain
One Chain, Read from Either End
Breathing
A blocked nose in childhood means mouth breathing. The lips part, the tongue drops, the head tips forward to straighten the throat.
The Upper Jaw
The tongue is what shapes the palate. Tongue down, the palate grows narrow and high, the teeth crowd, and the nose has less room.
The Lower Jaw
The lower jaw grows to fit the upper. A narrow upper arch traps it back. That set-back position feels normal — it is where the teeth fit, not where the muscles would choose.
The Joint
A jaw held back carries the joint back and up, squeezing the tissue behind the disc. First the click, later the lock, and a joint that is never quite comfortable.
The Muscles
Muscles that hold a jaw in a position it does not like never switch off. That constant bracing is what many people feel as jaw pain, temple headache and a tight neck.
The Head and Neck
A forward head, a rotated top vertebra, a tilted pelvis: the body adjusts everything to keep the eyes level and the airway open. Where it hurts is rarely where it began.
The Bucket
Symptoms Are the Overflow The Bucket Is the Story
A tilted pelvis, a forward head, a narrow airway, a bite that makes the muscles work, poor sleep, shallow breathing — none of these is an injury. Each is a load. Pain, dizziness, headaches, jaw tension and fatigue are what spills over when the bucket is full. The mistake is treating the overflow for years without asking what is filling the bucket. Every part of our team has the same job: reduce the load and let the bucket drain.
Something Is Primary
Not Always the Same Thing
Sometimes it is the pelvis. Sometimes the top of the neck. Sometimes the airway, loaded since childhood. Sometimes the bite. Only one is primary at a time; the rest are responding to it. Our job is not to force a sequence but to discover it — assess, treat one thing, re-measure, and let the body tell us what is next. That is why three people look at you on day one, and why we measure before we treat.
The Team
Three Offices, One Patient
Dr. Westersund
Measures muscle activity with surface EMG, where and when your teeth touch with computerised bite analysis, how the jaw moves with jaw tracking, and the joints and airway with CBCT imaging. Treats the jaw and the bite.
The Upper Cervical Chiropractor
Assesses the top two bones of the neck — the ones that tell the brain which way is up — with measured upright films, and treats within their own licence.
The Biomechanical Therapist
Assesses the pelvis, the rib cage, the diaphragm and how you stand and walk, and treats movement and muscle within their own licence.
Not Sure Where You Fit? Start with a Conversation
A free Zoom meet-and-greet with Dr. Westersund and Team. No obligation, no travel — just a clear idea of whether a visit to Calgary makes sense for you.