Justin Richer

Oh, my God.

That's a structure.

Oh, no.

It's an extension of the bone, and it's harder than bone in some cases.

But, I mean, they really do matter, and they're supposed to be there.

Well, my TMJ exam is longer and more detailed than anything else that I do, including most surgeries that I do.

And part of that reason is you really have to listen.

as a provider.

And so like, you know, do they have locking of the jaw?

Do they have dislocating of the jaw?

Like, you know, maybe just one side of their jaw is having a problem and the other one's moving fine.

Maybe their jaw deflects a little bit, you know, it doesn't move so well on one side.

But you start by listening and then, you know, you compare, you know, what they're saying to what you're seeing on an exam.

And then we take an x-ray and we see if, you know, there's changes in the bone.

You can get MRIs of the jaw joint just the same way you get MRIs in a knee.

And so, like, you know, those are forms of assessment.

MRI.

MRI proves it.

You look at an image and you're like, well, cartilage is supposed to be here, but it's actually there.

And you can't, MRI doesn't lie.