GNM Optimized
GNM Optimized — Why Building the Bite in Six Dimensions Changes Everything for Complex TMD Cases
Every dentist who has used TENS and K7 to take a bite registration believes they are finding the correct mandibular position. Most are not. They are finding a position — but not necessarily the optimal position. The difference between those two outcomes is the difference between a case that stabilizes and a case that relapses. GNM Optimization is the disciplined clinical process — developed and proven at Occlusion Connections over 20 years — that goes beyond classical neuromuscular bite recording to identify, confirm and build the bite at the true physiologic vertical dimension on the optimized myo-trajectory in all six dimensions. It is not a technique. It is a thinking process — and it is what separates the 1% clinician from everyone else.
What is GNM? The Difference Between GNM Dentistry and NM Dentistry
The Optimized Bite is totally different from classical K7 and low frequency J5 Dental TENS protocols and techniques. It begins with a “Thinking Process” that goes beyond classical neuromuscular concepts. It’s a training process that expands the clinicians appreciation beyond what many clinicians have learned from in the past. It’s a systematic approach. It’s an approach that makes sense – step by step. It pays attention to the details of dentistry.
At OC, we train our doctors to see things they haven’t seen before, to understand and comprehend foundational concepts that were formerly overlooked or were not realized before. Now, with logical step by step teachings at OC, the clinician begins to realize the underlying difference in taking a bite versus “building a bite”in 6 dimensions. Advanced techniques, key protocols and methods are uniquely taught and held in highest regard by those clinicians who learn these advanced methods from Phase 1 to Phase 2.
The OC Residency Program is for those clinicians who are searching for clinical answers!
Physiologic rest is not really physiologic until it is optimized, proven and validated.
The instrumentation validation, terminology evolution, and documented clinical record that ground this measured approach are laid out in The Evidence Behind GNM: Objective Measurement and Clinical Outcomes.
Our doctors learn the proven GNM techniques that focuses on careful observation of their patient’s mandibular positioning.
The Optimized Bite protocols are an advancement from all classic TENS, Myobites, so called “Chan Scan K7 Scan 4/5 bites” and other K7 bite recording techniques taught in the NM arena.
The lower mandibular GNM orthotic is not based on the misnomer of “pulling” the jaw down and forward. This is not neuromuscular nor physiologic. These are terms that are often used…but this is not accurate.
NO PULLING NO PUSHING
- We don’t pull anything forward. Even in our OC protocols we are not pulling the jaw forward. The fact of the matter is that the mandible is pulling itself backward causing and inducing the TMD problems.
- All we are doing is identify a relaxed mandibular position and allowing the mandible to relax down and slightly more forward where the mandible wants to be. We don’t force anything forward or back. We don’t manipulate neither do we need to touch the mandible. The neurophysiologic foundation of this protocol is the reciprocal balance of the lateral pterygoid muscle — when its superior and inferior heads are brought into physiologic balance through the GNM Optimized Bite trajectory, the mandible finds its true unstrained position on its own.
When there are abnormal forces in either the muscles or occlusion, that is when one feels pain and discomfort.
SECRET to SUCCESS
“The unifying Vision of GNM brings clarity of diagnosis, allowing focus of treatment for the highest resolution in a timely manner.”
Dentist are now recognizing clinically the fact that GNM (gneuromuscular) is another level of advancement in neuromuscular application.
Continued Learning
🔹 Core Concepts
- What Is Physiologic Occlusion? Why the Answer Determines Everything →
- Myocentric: The Correct Bite Position →
- 5 Key Principles of Physiologic Occlusion →
- GNM is Not the Same as NM →
- Gneuromuscular vs. Neuromuscular Dentistry →
- Gneuromuscular Dentistry (GNM) →
- Why Gneuromuscular Dentistry? The Next Level of Advancement →
🔹 Bite Optimization
- What Is Bite Optimization →
- ® Optimized Bite and the Chan Optimized Bite™ →
- Optimized Bite History →
- Chan Optimized Bite Training →
- EMG Occlusal Timing and First Tooth Contact Scan 12 →
🔹 Occlusal Plane
🔹 Clinical Application
- TMD Treatment Approach: NM or GNM? →
- Treatment: Lower Anatomical GNM Orthosis →
- Who Are the GNM Dentists? →
🔹 The Original Science Behind GNM
- The Evidence Behind GNM: Objective Measurement and Clinical Outcomes →
- Scientific Truths: Bio-Physiology & Objective Measurements →
- Why OC is Different — The Original Science Behind GNM Dentistry →
- Why Anterior Deprogrammers Fail the Complex TMD Patient — And What GNM Does Instead →
- Why Posterior Occlusal Support Matters — The Neurophysiologic Explanation →
- Lateral Pterygoid Muscle: Its Relevance to Clinical Dentistry →
🔹 Ready to Train
Written by Clayton A. Chan, D.D.S. — Founder and Director, Occlusion Connections | Las Vegas, Nevada
