This is a game of mastering misinformation

In these TMJ groups people will say lots of contradicting information and deciphering the truth is very complex.

When I reflect on the last 10 years and why I wasn’t out of this game at least 6-7 years ago I put it down to misinformation.

The solution was relatively simple. And I am very confident it works on everyone.

So why did it take me so long? After all i’m a pretty logical dude with a test & iterate mindset.

It should not have taken me this long to figure it out. And i’d actually already stumbled on the right answer by early 2016.

So I could have been chillin’ living the good life for 8 years already.

Why am I not?

Misinformation.

This is the hardest part of this puzzle. You will have cats (dentists, patients, DIY gurus) all over the place saying all kinds of contradictory shit.

And your job is to sift through this and figure out the truth.

A cloud of misinformation

When I go on to groups like the TMJ subreddit and I offer my solution that all you need to do is wear a rubber nightguard and literally everyone should start to get better… it is met with extreme skepticism.

And naturally so.

Each day there are probably a few guys like me saying… I solved my TMJ with this or that.

Some of it I’ll look at and say to myself.. “ok i understand why that makes sense.” Like some folks who said they wore a simple rubber mouthguard.

Other posts just seem ridiculous.

Like yesterday at the top of the Subreddit was a post about some dude who said that all his TMJ issues went away when he started wearing glasses.

This will definitely not work for most folks.

So how do you choose who to believe?

People will also mistakenly tell me that I am wrong

There are many well-intentioned folks that jump onto my threads and tell me that what I am saying is wrong and did not work for them.

They will say that they either wore a flat plane splint or a rubber mouthguard and it made them worse.

What i typically do with these folks is I dig a bit further into how they made this conclusion. Because I, myself, want to understand better to see if there are perhaps exceptions that I have not yet come across.

And they always say things like:

• I got a lot of headaches

• I got a posterior open bite

• I had pain in the mouth or teeth

And I always shake my head and think… “That is part of the healing process!”

I have not yet heard one answer to this question where I truly thought the person should have stopped.

They incorrectly reversed directions because they simply do not understand how the healing process works. Nobody told them that they should expect these things and that the journey is difficult.

They did not have a yardstick to measure their progress. Like the one i developed when i figured out that you should be measuring your curve of spee on a tracking splint.

And this is the same shit that turned me around numerous times back in 2016-19 so I understand it very well.

You’re in the fog of war and just want to get out. And you’re scared that you’re doing the wrong thing.

So you change your mind. A lot.

That is just how this shit works.

When barraged with conflicting information, most folks will use their ‘gut’

This is what I did in the early years. I used my gut.

You use patterns in other areas of your life to help your decisionmaking. In most other areas it is the specialist that is better renowned and costs more that tends to be better.

So this is what you do for awhile. You chase the best dentists and spend a lot of money.

And in this game, unfortunately this typically doesn’t get you anywhere. Except for emptying your bank account.

Plus in this game it is nearly impossible to get accurate reviews of specialists.

Because these specialists do not want to make this easily available (probably given that their results are often very mixed and bad). Plus there is information privacy stuff that they can use as an excuse.

And so you might also look for reviews & recommendations from other patients on Facebook Groups, Reddit, and such. But this also turns out to be very conflicted and confusing.

Luckily my gut was also that i’m more logical than most people

I literally think this might be the only reason i got out of this game and figured it out. LOL

It was my slight arrogance that in life i generally considered myself smarter than the vast majority of people i’d met.

I’ve just always been a very logical and structured thinker that performed very well in roles that required that. It was what life taught me. Hahaha

So when i came across these various dentists and they tried to position themselves as ‘experts’, it fell on deaf ears.

I judged them for the logic of what they said and the evidence they presented. Not the degree on their wall.

I also have a natural sciences degree from Cornell, one of the world’s best pre-med programs, and so i’d studied the sciences alongside folks that became some of the world’s best doctors.

And I more than held my own in them in those science classes. Despite the fact that I had no intention of becoming a doctor.

So a bunch of dentists from second rate universities were not going to wow me.

My advice to you on how to deal with this misinformation

The contradictory information you get in this game is massive. And there is no recognized authority that has it right unfortunately.

Even what they teach in dental schools is wrong.

You should not even believe me.

Rather you should use your own logic. Write down your own hypotheses. Think about how you will test them and then test them. And write down the results.

Do this for everything you do to get yourself better.

Actually write it down. Like in a journal or something.

I did this for years ever since I first started in late 2014. And i’d review these notes regularly to look at the past conclusions i’d made.

Because it is only by doing this that you will avoid making the same mistakes again and again.

So take what I say in this blog and look at it skeptically. Ask yourself if the logic makes sense to you. If the different things that I say add up or contradict one another.

And if you decide to try it then say to yourself… “ok i’m going to test and document what I experience. I’m going to approach this the way I would approach a maze. Leaving a documented trail as I go.”

And if you do that in a disciplined way for an extended period.. then one day you will realize that you have mastered the misinformation.

And are on your way out of the maze.

See you at the finish line my friend.