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Dentist Kyle Dalton goes over a how TMJ is treated in his Conway office

CONWAY—Kyle Dalton has been a dentist for 20 years and for the past decade has been practicing in Conway.

Dalton has specialized in cosmetic dentistry and temporomandibular joint disorder, better known as TMJ.

But when Dalton, who is a native of Kennett, Mo., was in dental school in Kansas City, he never saw himself doing what he does now.

"I never thought I'd be hooking up electrodes to people," he said. "I had no intention of doing this. I was focused on cosmetic dentistry, that's really what I do. But there's no specialty in cosmetics or TMJ. No recognized specialty where people go out and learn things. And I think, unfortunately, that people are doing things that they don't have training to do, but are doing anyway.
Dalton did his additional training at specialized schools for dentists in Las Vegas and Orlando.

But, "you don't learn it at dental school," he said, "they don't teach that and that's where most dentists learn their stuff."

In Dalton's mind, the problems that some patients have are fairly obvious.

"The patient's bite is wrong," Dalton said. "The bite not being correct can wreak havoc in the everyday things that we do. And that just makes sense … but that's how I got started."

Dalton treats not just Arkansans but patients from all over the region.

"It got more and more interesting," he said. "It was unbelievable what could be done, and the role of those who are trained in this and the impact that they can have on people's lives."

TMJ treatment may seem new, but it isn't. "The guy who developed this has been doing it for 35 years."

Dalton starts each new patient with a basic premise in his mind.

"I treat the problem, so if you eliminate the problem, you don't have the symptom."

And the manifestations of the base problem with the bite can be many.

But, "the basic treatment is always the same," Dalton said. "If the bite is comfortable, we call it neutral; what you want is the relationship of the upper and lower jaws where the muscles are neutral."

But why neutral?

"If the muscles are neutral there is no pain," he said. "And that's what we call grinding your teeth. The reason why you grind your teeth is that something is out of whack.

Dalton then asked a simple question. "What's the first thing you do before you start CPR? You open the airway. … It all boils down to airway issues. That's why it is going to be such a big thing with sleep apnea. If your airway is not working correctly you have to hold your jaw in a different position that's not normal and it causes stress on the jaw."

And that's what leads to all the other problems.

Around Conway
In a 1987 article penned by sportswriter Jake Sandlin in the Arkansas Gazette about Scottie Pippen, the former professional basketball player who played collegiate ball at the University of Central Arkansas, Conway was described as a "sleepy, little college town" with a population a little over 25,000.

Fast forward 20 years and Conway has doubled in population to more than 50,000 and UCA, which had an enrollment of around 7,000 students in Pippen's time, is now the state's second-largest school with 12,000 plus.

The healthcare in Conway has kept up with city's growth.

Conway Regional is the town's only hospital and now has 149 beds and a wide range of services. The hospital's Web site lists 116 physicians on staff.

Some of those doctors are homegrown, such as Conway native Martin Moix, who graduated from Hendrix College, another college in Conway, before going to medical school at UAMS.

Moix, who is a gastroenterologist, has been in Conway ever since graduating from UAMS, where he still teaches as an assistant professor.

"We have three (GIs) in town and we all take a week [of call] at a time," Moix said. "There are days when I don't have to go in at all and then there are days like today when I've already had two patients. So it is kind of variable ... but we stay pretty busy."


May 2007

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