Massage and Dental Work: an Introduction
Does anyone really enjoy getting dental work?
It’s uncomfortable keeping our mouths open and our necks turned for the length of the procedures.
It’s invasive having someone stick instruments into our mouths.
And it can hurt – a lot.
Dentists understand this and, increasingly, they’ve begun to look for ways to help their patients to be more comfortable – including massage therapy.
But massage therapy’s benefits for dental patients go far beyond simply helping them relax.
For patients undergoing non-routine procedures like
Implant and post insertions
Crown and bridge work
Root canal or
any lengthy procedure that involves intense external force such as drilling,
massage therapy can be a great support in speeding your recovery.
And for patients undergoing a series of procedures, massage treatments between sessions can have a significant impact on your ability to undergo treatment in a timely manner, as well as on your quality of life during the process.
To understand how massage therapy can help dental patients, let’s look at how dental procedures affect our bodies.
The stress to our bodies from dental procedures – not counting anxiety responses or the effects of anesthesia – falls into two broad categories:
The stress imposed by drilling and other external forces applied by the dentist during the procedures; and
The stress of holding the jaw open and the neck steady
The effect is similar to overusing any muscle group - such as in lifting heavy boxes during a move - and can lead to muscle pain, inflammation, and restriction in the most directly effected areas of the jaw, facial muscles, neck and shoulders, as well as generalized tension patterns throughout the body, potentially effecting your sleep, moods, concentration, digestion and more.
In general, if you’ve had challenges with jaw, neck, shoulder and upper back tension in the past, you’ll be more vulnerable to the stresses of major dental work – and more likely to experience some of these effects.
In 30+ years of professional practice, I’ve consistently found massage therapy treatment to be highly effective at helping alleviate tension and discomfort following from major dental work.
What happens in a session?
The sessions happen in stages, based on a sense of partnership - of working together toward shared goals - which we establish before we meet.
Your time on the table begins with a short sequence to open the body as whole, blending assisted stretching, guided imagery and an assortment of cozy props – much like a restorative yoga session.
We then begin to bring “space” and length to your neck and shoulders – the foundation for your head and mouth - and, from there, begin to address the areas of tension that brought you in to see me, “weaving” back and forth between the jaw and face, neck and shoulders and upper torso, with a synergistic blend of my touch and your relaxed but focused participation through gentle breath and jaw movements and curious compassionate, curious self-awareness.
As the body relaxes and the breath begins to open, so, too, do the mouth, jaw, tongue and throat. Circulation flows more easily, inflammation subsides, musculature that’s been bracing or held gets to release, and the body as a whole, including the parts that have been hurting, move back toward balance.
Medical practices providing massage therapy for their post-surgical patients report these benefits:
Decreased pain and discomfort, both in the immediate site of the surgery as well as other areas effected either by the positioning of the procedure
Increased circulation, facilitating a speeding of the healing process
Reduced inflammation
Increased range-of-motion
Relief of stress and anxiety and
Greater general comfort
And - for patients whose dental-related anxiety affects their ability to tolerate treatment, body-centered desensitizing process work coupled with gentle hands-on treatment can help to lessen your anxiety response and provide self-calming tools to help you to better tolerate procedures necessary for your dental health.