The jaw joint is a twist-and-slide joint, a flexible disk separates the joint into an upper and a lower section.

The sliding motion mainly takes place in the upper section, and the twisting motion in the lower section. Only when the teeth come together does the lower jaw again find the „right“ position, if you hold your mouth open for a long time, then it often takes a while for the body to find the ideal position again. You can usually see this in the early morning, for example if you have slept with your mouth open – then you have the feeling that your teeth do not quite fit right. During the course of the morning you again get the right occlusion – once the receptors of the tooth suspension system have once again subjected the lower jaw to some „fine-tuning“.

The position of our lower jaw is thus determined by the way our teeth fit together – but what do you do if a person has no more teeth? Earlier, the position of the lower jaw was determined based on the position of the jaw head on an x-ray, since the joint socket is highest up at the back – it was assumed that this must be the ideal position for the jaw head. Many patients were forced into this position using newly fashioned dentures, crowns and/or bridges, the result of which was that many of them suddenly experienced pain.

This is because an x-ray only shows bone, but up at the back there is a connective mass of nerves and vessels – and this is not visible on the x-ray! A new position of the jaw head, caused by the re-positioning of the teeth, makes this connective mass compress – and this hurts. Now it is assumed that the ideal position of the lower jaw head for people who have no teeth is up and to the front.

If crowns and bridges are made and the patient feels „comfortable“, then this should not be changed, if there are only very few teeth left, then when a cast of the jaw is made special jaw casting techniques are used to position the jaw head up and to the front. Your new teeth should feel good!