Chiropractic Specialists Take Aim at Dentists' Monopoly Over Teeth
- Zoo Knudsen
- 3 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Davenport, IA - A growing number of chiropractors, historically associated with care of the spine, are specializing in teeth and looking to unseat doctors of dentistry as the go-to experts in oral health.
"Teeth are a lot like bones," Frank Grimes, a chiropractor who specializes in dental care, explained. "The only real difference is that they are outside the body and more easily assessed for misalignments or functional abnormalities that can be gently adjusted back into a healthy position without the need for painful and expensive interventions like braces or root canals."
Chiropractors who have specialized in the treatment of teeth use a whole-mouth approach. According to Grimes, this means that he focuses on your teeth, gums, tongue, and the inside of your cheeks when diagnosing a problem and developing a treatment plan. "We get to the root cause of any mouth-related complaints, rather than simply treating symptoms. Do you see what I did? The root cause? Because teeth have roots? Just a little chiropractic dentist humor. We have a lot of fun here in the clinic."
The idea that chiropractors might be suited for managing dental complaints goes as far back as the very first patient treated by the profession's founder, D.D. Palmer. Maybe even further. Chiropractic historian Frank Grimes, a chiropractor previously quoted in this article, thinks so:
Though the first chiropractic treatment by Double D, which is what cool chiropractors call Palmer, occurred in 1895, there are cave paintings going back many thousands of years depicting early human chiropractors holding crude spear-like spinal adjusting devices. Those people almost certainly had teeth. That's just science.
Skeptics are not going to be convinced by ancient human drawings, however. When facing a hardened denier, Grimes points to Palmer's own writings where he described the first chiropractic adjustment in a letter to childhood friend Mortimer Codswallop:
Today I accidentally bumped into a guy who lives in my building. Get this. He finds me later and is all like, "I think my cold is a little better. And my teeth are a bit less rotten." Weird, right? Do you think maybe I knocked his spine back into position? This must be what God feels like!
"One thing that I think is important to let potential patients know is that we go through many hours of training to earn a certificate in dental chiropractic," Grimes revealed. "I didn't just wake up one day and decide to treat crooked teeth and stank mouth for a living. I went to several weekend seminars, passed a grueling online exam, and had to publish a case report."
Chiropractic dentists recommend traditional methods of oral hygiene, like brushing, flossing, and scraping. They also place a heavy emphasis on important lifestyle factors such as active gnawing on hard, abrasive objects to scrape plaque and tartar from the teeth and gums, getting good sleep, and stress reduction. In fact, the American Chiropractic Dentist Association, in only its second year of existence, recently released its first policy statement. In the statement, they recommend that all teeth be brushed most days and polished weekly with steel wool.
Many people have avoided seeing a dentist regularly out of fear of pain. Some worry that they will become confused and spit before rinsing instead of after. Dr. Grimes says that chiropractic adjustments of the teeth are extremely gentle, however, and don't require complex patient instructions. "Most of my adjustments are precise to the individual tooth and involve only the amount of pressure you might use to check a tomato for ripeness. I use a finger or a dental activator. Sometimes I need to break out the strap. Naughty patients get the strap."