My thoughts on Dr. Young jun Lee, the TMJ 'miracle worker'
How is he getting his results? How is my approach different? Which is better?
One of the top names in this TMJ realm is Dr. Young jun Lee.
I’d first heard of him many years ago. I wanna say around 2015 or so.
And at one point I was considering trying to go to Korea to be treated by him.
Needless to say… I am glad i did not do that.
Though I do think he does a lot of things that are correct. And today i’m gonna break down my view on what he does right and what is a load of BS.
So who is Dr. Lee?
Dr. Young Jun Lee is a renowned South Korean expert specializing in neurological disorders, particularly using an innovative approach centered around the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). He has developed therapies such as TMJ Balancing Therapy (TBT) and Functional Cerebrospinal Therapy (FCST), which focus on aligning the TMJ to correct various neurological conditions.
Dr. Lee’s work connects the TMJ's alignment with the body's overall neuromuscular system, including cranial nerves, the spine, and posture. By balancing the TMJ, his treatments aim to improve conditions like dystonia, Tourette's syndrome, trigeminal neuralgia, and fibromyalgia.
His method uses a variety of intraoral appliances.
Dr. Lee has also very much gone international and is a recognized name in many countries.
Plus his clinic, YJ Care Clinic, claims to have an 85% success rate with its treatments.
What kind of patients does he treat?
From their Youtube channel the patients that he seems to focus the most on are ones with neurological disorders. Conditions like:
Dystonias (cervical and general)
Tourette’s Syndrome
Trigeminal neuralgia
Fibromyalgia
But outside of that it also seems like he deals more generally with TMJ and also facial assymetries.
He seems to be getting some of the best results in this area in the entire world. And seeing his approach that doesn’t surprise me in the least.
What is his protocol?
He calls his approach a TMJ Balancing Therapy (FCST).
This stands for ‘Functional Cerebro Spinal Therapy’ and it aims for ‘TMJ Balance’. You can watch this video to learn more about it.
There seems to be two main appliances they use:
The CBA (YBA) looks essentially like an indexed splint that he is probably indexing after doing some body work. Something i did for years during my experiments from 2015-18.
The OBA is essentially a rubber guard like a Myobrace or my Reviv One. So no surprise on that one.
He also includes a number of secondary therapies which are listed here.
Basically this is various type of body work… which I do agree accelerates the process a bit. But is not absolutely necessary.
He seems to have gone mainstream
It’s clear that Dr. Lee thinks he has come up with some revolutionary.
After all people are traveling from all over the world and paying him lots of money to fix their TMJ and neurological issues, which dentists in their own countries seem to be unable to do.
And he even publishes books on Amazon like the one above and has his own active Youtube channel.
So does he have the magic touch?
Not in my book. He is doing basic shit that i experimented with for years.
Where do we agree vs. disagree?
So I basically think the CBA (indexed appliance) is not needed. But I see how he thinks it is helpful because i made the same mistake for years.
And it comes down to logic.
You see… back in 2016-17 I was often doing yoga or some body work (like an osteopath) and noticing that my bite would change afterwards.
I would see the change in my occlusion via my ‘tracking splint’ which i have explained in the past. Basically i’d drill all the contacts on back 4 teeth even on the splint before the bodywork and then i’d see that they would change after the body work was complete.
So to ‘hold my gains’ back then I would register a new splint with this new occlusion. Thinking that this was necessary for things to not revert.
But then with time i realized that this is not needed at all. Rather the physics work such that you simply need to wear your rubber guard and you will not only hold your gains but continue to improve.
What allowed me to make that logical conclusion? My knowledge of the curve of spee. And this is the part that I don’t think Lee fully gets.
You see… if I didn’t know about the curve of spee than I would have no way of comparing the progress i made with registering an indexed splint after body work vs. simply using a rubber guard.
But once I understood the curve of spee… i could easily compare the two by seeing which approach would have me drilling the front of the splint more.
The more you drill the front of the splint, the faster it is creating a curve of spee (= a good thing).
So with that.. i realized that this whole business about the registered splint (ie. Dr. Lee’s ‘CBA’) is a waste of time and not needed.
Dr. Lee and I are essentially doing the same thing except he added some stuff I consider useless
I even bet Dr. Lee kind of understands that this business with the CBA isn’t really needed.
But just giving people a Myobrace-type appliance (the OBA) is gonna have a lot of patients wondering why they’re paying the big bucks. After all you can get something similar off Aliexpress for $50.
And so he’s a bit like a magician in my book…. he adds the fancy process stuff to dress the process up. When in reality the patient would have probably made as fast or faster progress simply wearing the rubber appliance (the OBA) and doing some body work.
And this latter approach is essentially the Reviv approach.
But at the same time I give him credit for working with these neurological patients. That is not easy and he is giving them hope and a path forward.
But do I think they could use pretty much any rubber mouthguard and achieve the same thing?
Answer: Yes I am very confident they would. But the journey is hard without having a doctor to escort you.
I will take things to the ‘end’… and he will never even get close
I will part by saying that I will go well beyond the furthest that Lee ever will.
Because I have understood and mastered the soft tissue as I explain in this post.
It is this element that allows you to conclude just how far this shit goes. That it is the root cause of disease, aging and beauty. As I explain in this post as ‘level 5’.
You don’t figure out this part without learning how to do this whole process about 10x faster than a rubber appliance like his OBA allows for.
And that is what I learned to do with my soft tissue stretches (which I do not yet teach). It is why my scalp and face break and shed each day for over 1.5 years as my skull expands right thru the skin.
It is why I am claiming that I will have a perfect body and symmetrical face at age 47 after having done fuck all for 4+ years in terms of exercise.
So yeah… in my book… i’m going to take this much further than he ever even thought imagineable.
And when i’m done in some months and show my documented journey… he’s gonna be left wondering “how the fuck did that crazy ass American do it? Here I thought he was full o shit.”
lol