Can using Kinesiology make you a better dentist?

It’s easy. It’s painless. It doesn’t cost your patients anything extra, but this simple test can tell you so much about what is going on with them-both in their mouth and their entire body-so you can determine the best way to treat any problems.

Chicago dentist Dr. Raymond Hatland has used Kinesiology as a guideline for diagnosing and treating his patients for 36 years. We recently talked with him about what it is, how it can be used in a dental practice and how it can benefit patients. Here’s what he had to say:

DPR: What exactly is Kinesiology and how can it be used in dentistry?

Dr. Hatland: Kinesiology in dentistry is mostly a testing system to find out what’s going on underneath in the energy system itself. We don’t really have a sense of that. Everything affects the energy system but the energy system also affects everything else. Trying to find out what’s happening to the energy system is a way to find out some of the reasons why people get sick and how dentistry can affect the patient’s health positively or negatively.

DPR: Can you describe how it works?

Dr. Hatland: The simplest and most frequent thing I do is to test the stress levels from a person’s biting. I have the person close together and see if that’s setting up a disturbance in the energy system. I have the patient start with his jaws apart and then I test a muscle, any muscle that’s strong. It could be an arm or fingers or a hand. Then I have the patient close together firmly, and then I see if there’s a drop in the strength of the muscle. If there is, the arm will go down with little pressure. What that indicates is there are a number of muscles all the way down the spine getting very tense and out of balance just because the person put his teeth together. It’s this tension along the spine and a few other places that produces the drop in the energy flow. And then you see the drop in the strength of the muscle, which is temporary. The more tension you have in the body the more restricted the life flow is in the body. The more restricted the life flow the more susceptible we are to discomfort, pain, diseases, things like that.

DPR: Is this something you do with every patient?

Dr. Hatland: No, just patients who are presenting with certain problems or something suspicious that I see from either wear patterns or if they’re coming in with specific complaints that indicate they have a compression disorder. These are always stress related, stress induced and many times habitual since childhood. Modern day stresses build up and have an accumulative effect. I’ve send kids 3 or 4 years old clenching and grinding away. Maybe that’s from stress in the digestive system and that habit continues throughout life. A lot of what I do is try to stop that and to get the patient to be able to get control of what’s going on. Once that happens there is a marvelous effect on the patient’s whole sense of well being.

DPR: How did you get involved with Kinesiology?

Dr. Hatland: I’ve always been fascinated by why some people get sick with this and some people get sick with that. It’s all very mysterious. I was always trying to find out what is the reason or cause behind different manifestations of disease. I went to Yoga and did mediation for a number of years before I learned about Kinesiology so I knew the energy system had a lot to do with it. Kinesiology helps us discover what’s actually happening inside the body and why. Using the energy system to find out the problem doesn’t mean it’s the energy system that’s the cause. It can be structural imbalances or chemicals or smoking or toxins or bacteria and infections. You can start to find out what’s actually happening so you can apply the proper remedies for the situation. You can find a tremendous amount of inside information that the patient may or may not have any awareness of.

DPR: How do you describe it to your patients?

Dr. Hatland: You present it as a stress test. Then I ask if they’ve heard of the Accupunture meridian energy system. Almost all patients have. It doesn’t hurt and it’s quick. And in some ways, to find out the same information it would cost $500 to $1,000 to do it biochemically. So hey, it’s quick, efficient and painless and you get some really good inside information. But know there are things to watch out for. You can get fooled. You want to go at it with some training and play with it in a non patient situation first before you actually do it. There’s a certain amount of confidence one has to have.  

DPR: How can dentists get involved with this?

Dr. Hatland: You have to take courses. You need to find somebody who’s doing it successfully and has a good model working. I’m not sure how many dental courses there are right now. You might need to go into the chiropractic levels to get some training in Applied Kinesology or Contact Reflex Anaylasis. I don’t know any dentists teaching it, but I know a lot of dentists who use it. It’s just a way to help guide the dentist to do what is biologically acceptable for the patient. You’re not just going by a cookbook.

DPR: Why would you encourage other dentists to incorporate this into their practice?

Dr. Hatland: One, they’ll become a better dentist. A much more awake dentist. You get to be more aware of what a patient needs and you can approach it in a gentle way. But you don’t use this as the only way to test something. It’s just one of the tests, but it does really give you a sense of what’s going to be good for the patient. And not just locally but in the whole body.