Barbara J. Greene, MFT, COM, Certified Orofacial Myologist …. In Private Practice since 1971

    For 10 years prior to my private practice, I was fortunate to work for a dentist specializing in gnathology and TMJ correction. Due to his affiliation with UCLA, we were sent a complicated case of a 16-year-old female with no enamel on any of her teeth, a serious open bite, and a major tongue thrust. We had no one to treat the tongue thrust; I was sent for training, her case was treated very successfully. Once we had awareness, we found that many of our patients had this condition, needed treatment, and my private practice was launched.

    Since that time, I have helped hundreds of children and adults correct dysfunction of the oral and facial muscles through a simple exercise program that takes approximately three to six months of weekly therapy, 2x a day at-home exercises, and a maintenance period of follow-up at 3 to 6 month intervals to be sure that normal function has been established.

    I am more holistic in my approach to treatment due to my dental background and having had the privilege of working with and being associated with dentists who were on the cutting edge of new techniques, new age thought patterns, and who utilized treatment modalities that might be considered “far out”, but they worked and changed peoples lives.

    In 1968, after 24 hours labor with my daughter, my jaw went into spasm, locked open, and I began my saga of severe TMJ/TMD (jaw joint dysfunction). The gnathologist that I worked for specialized in TMJ and we began the process of full mouth reconstruction, crowning all of my teeth, correcting my bite discrepancies, constructing my mouth on the Stuart Instrument with the cusp-fosse technique of Peter K. Thomas, DDS. I did tongue thrust therapy to correct my own oral-facial muscle dysfunction during this time, also.

    The process of reconstruction was very hard on me, but I was hopeful my “new bite” would allow the pain to go away. Alas, that was not the case and I actually got worse with the delivery of my crowns/new bite. By this time, I was experiencing pain in my face, head, neck, and all extremities. I had numbness in my arms, hands, and legs. I had no choice but to work as my husband had left when my daughter was only 3 months old, but I truly did not know how I would survive. I searched for answers for 2 ½ years, I was fearful of becoming a drug addict because of the drugs I was taking just to handle the pain, and I considered suicide.

    Fortunately, the mother of two of my patients who had had colic from birth, a miserable baby life, negative/angry personalities, allergies, and learning and coordination difficulties, introduced me to the concept of cranial osteopathy, a science that deals with the natural forces of the body. Their total lives changed once they had had treatment with Viola Frymann, DO of The Osteopathic Center For Children in San Diego, CA. Their mother sadly admitted to the fact that she would have sold them both if she could have because they were such difficult children from birth and their lives had been miserable. Fortunately, a friend at church, told her about Dr. Frymann and she took them for treatment. The results were extraordinary with all of the aforementioned symptoms now being a thing of the past, she had two happy and delightful children, and the family moved to a totally different drummer!

    Well, I had to meet this woman with the magic in her hands. I knew that I was in the presence of a gift from God, but little did I know that her gift would save my life. She was in the process of preparing a seminar for the USC School of Dentistry about the cranial relationship to the temporomandibular joint apparatus. She decided to set aside her normal policy of only treating children to treat me. If she were successful in treating my TMJ/TMD problem, she would be able to utilize me in her seminar presentation. The results of my case resulted in changing the lives of many dentists, their thinking, and their treatment of patients in the future. It was truly a milestone in the history of TMJ/TMD philosophy.

    Dr. Frymann should have seen me immediately at my birth and the course of my life would have been quite different.  My Mother was never suppose deliver me normally due to a bout of polio during her childhood that had effected her pelvic bones. A C-section had been scheduled, but World War II interfered calling my doctor to war. The old town family physician told her that women had been having babies for years, allowed her to be in labor for 5 days, and finally delivered me with forceps. The cranial bone stress patterns with hard labor and/or forceps delivery are very intense. Correction by a cranial osteopath is the treatment of choice because they can aid the body in removing the inner-cranial-bone stress patterns. I was not given this choice, lived my whole life different from my brother and sister who were born with C-section, and ended up with the allergies, dyslexia, coordination difficulties, and was the more intense personality. I was very prone to accidents resulting in many blows to the body and head over my lifetime. The stress I placed on my cranial mechanism through the clenching of my teeth during 24 hours labor was the final block atop the file that sent everything crashing down.

    At this point in time, Dr. Frymann entered my life. On the third visit, her hands were cradled on the back of my head, but I began to feel movement up the sides of my head as though there were another pair of hands. The movement continued to the top of my head, when suddenly I experienced an explosion inside my head that was identical to the sound of a bottle of champagne when the cork explodes out of the bottle. At the moment of the explosion, ALL of the pain was gone! I thought I had died, was perfectly happy with that fact due to the pain ending, but then I moved my hands and realized I was, in fact, not dead!  After several visits, I felt like a new person. I was free of pain and numbness, I no longer needed drug therapy, and I knew I could face my future. It took me another 14 years to find clinicians to treat me homeopathically to be free of the reactions to dental materials my body was experiencing, to rebuild my mouth to the correct vertical dimension, and to learn concepts of relaxation and spiritual attunement.

    My experiences have allowed me to be much more empathetic and help others find answers. I find a high percentage of the young children I see already have symptoms of jaw joint dysfunction. At completion of the tongue thrust therapy program, the headaches, jaw sounds, jaw shifts, ear ringing, earaches, neck tension, and/or facial stress have disappeared and the child is allowed the privilege of growing up free of this discomfort.

    Since 1971, I have had the honor of helping hundreds of children and adults stop their thumb-finger-pacifier-blanket-tongue sucking habits; I love the video I can play in my head of the beautiful faces that have been created; I rejoice in the many cases of people in pain or suffering from debilitating problems such as sleep apnea, snoring, stomach aches, or upper respiratory symptoms that I have been able to help; and I definitely leap for joy over the increase in self esteem that I see time-after-time.

    My sadness and frustration results in how few medical, dental, and/or speech clinicians realize the immense benefits that tongue thrust therapy allows and in such a short period of time in a person’s life. Instead, a person is left to deal with all of the symptoms that result in a lifetime, spending countless dollars unnecessarily, experiencing pain, orthodontic/dental failure, unsuccessful speech correction, continuing gum disease concerns, and facing difficulty wearing partials or dentures.

    I believe I will make a difference in your life. I look forward to sharing my passion with you and honor your commitment to yourself for a higher degree of health and well being.

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