Dr. Grace Cho, DC

What led me to this work

My path to TMJ care began as a patient. After high school, I was diagnosed with TMJ and spent the next three years in braces and splint therapy. By the end of that treatment, my bite had shifted so that my upper and lower front teeth met edge to edge, and I was told I had likely never had TMJ at all. I then worked with a specialist for nine months to bring my jaw and teeth back into position, but my jaw did not respond as we had hoped, and new symptoms began to appear along the way. Lower jaw surgery was recommended as the next step, and I chose to have it. Afterward, I was living with jaw and facial pain that I had not experienced before.

Those years stretched from high school graduation through college, and they shaped that time of my life in quiet ways. It took me longer to finish school, and for a long while I didn’t smile as freely as I once had.

How I found a different approach

I wanted to understand what had happened, and what else was possible. I see the body much like a building: the architecture has to be sound before any interior design can truly work. So I began with the structure, studying chiropractic at Life Chiropractic College West.

During school and in the years since, I have continued to seek out gentle, non-invasive therapies: cranial care, breathing and posture retraining, and many others that are often overlooked. The more I learned, the more I wanted to understand how these approaches could work together, and that has become the focus of my practice today.

Why I do this work

I know how much one treatment decision can shape the years that follow. My hope is that every person with TMJ can understand the full range of their options before they choose, whether their path includes surgery or not.

I also believe good TMJ care is a team effort. Dentists, orthodontists, oral surgeons and therapists each bring something valuable, and I see my role as one part of that team: adding whole-body support, communicating clearly, and continuing to learn as new approaches emerge. It is the work I intend to spend my career on, and it is what I look forward to every morning.

— Dr. Grace Cho, DC