Wellness

I came to Dr. Elizabeth Walker with jaw pain that made it difficult to eat and kept me awake at night. With a simple "Band Aid", as she called it, she made me more comfortable immediatley while we worked on a long term solution. The solution was eye-opening, to say the least. I was astonished to be shown that I had an airway restriction that limited my breathing by 50%. No wonder I had felt in recent years that I was operating on half steam, I was! As I learned more about it, I realized that my quality of life and activites had declined slowly over the last few years and at 60 I suspected it was part of the aging process.This airway restriction had changed the way my head sat on my neck (in an effort to get more air), which contributed to the jaw pain, chronic lower back pain, my aversion in the last few years to exercise, especially cardio (which affected weight gain) and even the way my teeth were crowding. I was fitted with day time and night time clear plastic orthotics made from a mold of my teeth. The day time orthotic was only worn on the bottom teeth and no one noticed I was wearing it. The biggest surprise was that I needed to wear it even during eating, but I soon became accustomed to that. Dr. Walker was very responsive about any inital adjustments necessary to make it comfortable, and much of the time I would forget I had it in.Now at the end of my treatment, scans show that the airway volume available to me has increased dramatically. My head sits on my neck without torqueing forward for air, my sleep has improved and I am exercising again and enjoying it. My jaw feels better and wonder of wonders, activites that used to make my lower back flair up no longer cause pain. This has been life changing in ways I never expected.