A personal message from Dr. Abeles
People ask me how did I come to develop MIRO Therapy®? My humble beginnings were as a cosmetic and reconstructive dentist. And although I enjoyed practice success and notoriety, I was disturbed seeing how many patients struggled with chronic pain in their temporomandibular joints, head and neck.
I studied with the very best and brightest in the TMJ field. But I found their treatment methods and clinical results lacking. I decided I wanted to devote my career towards understanding how we can restore damaged joints to health in situations where the joints would otherwise require invasive surgery.
We carry out around 150 complex procedures a year. A lot of patients I will see have often been told that there is something seriously wrong with their joints and there’s a very high chance that they will need surgery, with a poor prognosis. Some are at the end of the road – often quite lost.
Within a year of my research and development of MIRO Therapy®, I already was beginning to become one of the pioneers in this new field of computerized diagnostics applied to the diagnosis and treatment of TMJ disorders.
I was at the forefront of how things should be looked at differently than they had been in the past. We were beginning to diagnose differently, based upon concrete data rather than opinion. We were seeing minute changes in physiology and function that heretofore had been overlooked. We were treating differently.
It was at this time we realized the problem: that prescription drugs, Botox shots and surgical procedures were not the right solution for many of these cases. We had to be quite inventive. We came up with the idea that we had to dramatically improve muscle function in order to reduce pain.
And we simply asked questions that no one asked before. We saw things from a different perspective.
Now we could stream a sophisticated level of data to a computer that completely analyzed jaw movement, joint movement and muscle function. The genie was out of the bottle and it wasn’t going to go back to where it was.
Over several decades I’ve tried many new things. Quite often, I went against the established trends. I was lucky to be in the center of important developments by my association with the Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies and its founder, Dr. William Dickerson.
As a result of this journey, MIRO Therapy® was developed, refined and perfected.
MIRO Therapy® is really a remarkable achievement. It’s driven by years of hard work and innovation and an incredible attention to detail. As I’ve mentioned, traditional TMJ treatment relies on prescription drugs, Botox shots and surgery instead of focusing on the functional imbalance that caused the dysfunction and pain.
Even if you do attempt to correct the misalignment of the joints… without the aid of computer analysis and diagnostics, you increase the opportunity for failure.
The huge breakthrough that we had was to replace all of these shots, drugs and surgery with just one thing… an advanced, highly accurate, computerized analysis of jaw motion and muscle function. And this ‘one thing’ we call MIRO Therapy®.
We figured out how to make the treatment fundamentally more predictable and comfortable without the side effects of drugs or the risks of surgery – with a degree of accuracy that had not been done before.
I’ve been so fanatical in the research and ways we developed MIRO Therapy®. In many ways it’s more in concert with the human body and the way it’s designed to function than inserting drugs, shots or surgical procedures into the body. I think that exemplifies just how much I care about our body’s own natural ability to heal and not violating that God-given gift.
Understand a medical condition is part of the life of that individual…. and I’m part of their life, at least for a short period of time that I’m with them. I share in their happiness and share in their distress.
It’s a very emotional experience for me. I engage with the patients, their pain and their expectations. I was brought up in a home with loving parents who cared deeply about the customers they served in their little shop. It was never just a transaction. It was always about connection.
I have something worthwhile to devote my life towards. We’ve touched the lives of many people. When they come, many are discouraged and frustrated. Somehow, my role is to guide them through, to decide what’s the best for them.
I focus on continuing with my work, with MIRO Therapy®. I want to develop new methods, new techniques. I want to leave this field better than when I found it.
Treating chronic pain is a unique way of practicing. It’s not a 9 to 5 job. It requires much more than that. Trying to understand how a patient feels, being part of that process, not a detached professional.
People often ask me, after having done so many procedures, does it not just become part of a routine? Do I still have any feelings? I have the exact same feelings today as when I first began this treatment. I’m still human.
I’m happy with what I’ve done with my career. I’ll hopefully continue to do what I enjoy. To be with my patients, to be with my colleagues. To help our patients recover with our MIRO Therapy®. There’s nothing I would do differently if I were to start from the beginning.
