Equibite Atlas Stabilization Retainer

We have answers!

Where the head meets the neck, in the region known as the craniocervical junction, ligaments passively provide stability and limit mobility. Muscles actively provide mobility, but also actively provide stability.

Both muscles and ligaments stabilize the craniocervical junction– but in very different ways!

Muscles are the dynamic stabilizers of the craniocervical junction because they are active, and ligaments are the static stabilizers because they are passive. While both muscles and ligaments are in constant contact with the nervous system, ligaments communicate with the nervous system along sensory pathways only. Muscles communicate along both sensory and motor pathways. 

Ligaments are passive, therefore we call them static stabilizers. Muscles are active, therefore we call them dynamic stabilizers. The Fascia is passive, and sends sensory information to the central nervous system like the static stabilizers,  but because of it’s frictional interface with the dynamic muscular system, it can distribute muscular motive power, and that makes it a part of the dynamic stabilizer system. Essentially, fascia has characteristics of both passive and active stabilizers.   

Signaling the jaw, head and neck muscles, and then making them work in certain guided ways, is the secret to atlas stability.

Our Equibite Atlas Retainer is a crucial part of our TAP Treatment Method and is founded on the well established principle that muscles can be reprogrammed and re-balanced with the right training and tools. We utilize a non–dental oral appliance orthotic that guides the upper and lower jaw into a specific, stabilizing position that steadily retrains the muscles and reprograms the “sensors” of the upper cervical spine, the base of the head, jaw, tongue and face. 

The functional behavior potential of these muscles as head, neck and jaw stabilizers is much greater than the ligaments as stabilizers, because muscles are active throughout the entire range of motion, whereas ligaments are only fully active at the end-range of motion.

That is why muscles that have become accustomed to being active in the “wrong position” will pull the atlas and axis structures back into the habituated wrong position, causing the entire body to undergo compensatory relapse into an adapted, misaligned posture. Unless muscles are given a continuous reprogramming signal to behave differently and stay in a new position, they will continue to undergo relapse and fall back into their habitual patterns and postures.

“Our Equibite Atlas Retainer stabilizes the Atlas Alignment!”

The Equibite is a “programmed” orthotic which provides continuous input signals enabling the essential muscles of the head, neck and jaw to continue the new behavior associated with a new position. Even if the static stabilizer ligaments are unstable, or damaged, or if you have been diagnosed with craniocervical instability (CCI), or you just have bad habits, muscles can be gently and consistently reprogrammed into stable firing patterns which can then adapt to  new positions and trajectories.  This leads to a more stable Atlas-Axis alignment, even if the muscles have become imbalanced, weak or inactive over time.

The Equibite is not just a bite guard–it retrains and reprograms the wayward muscles of the head, jaw and neck!

Retaining the Atlas Alignment is how we heal! 

Neuroscientist Joe Dispensa rightly observes that the brain is rewired continuously by the firing patterns of our neurons. Posture and head, jaw and neck status are no different. The behavior is ingrained into our system through repetitive firing patterns of nerves and muscles. When we replace old muscular habits with new ones, repeating them consistently and frequently, the new patterns start to smudge away the old ones. We begin to “fire” neurons in different ways, and if we continue to do so, we can literally change the structure of the brain by the new cascading patterns, making those sensory and motor firing loops work in our favor, rather than against us. The architecture of the brain is literally changed when we ask it to do something different repeatedly, over time, and stay with it. 

Our Equibite stabilization orthotic is the tool we use to reprogram adapted muscle memory, and adapted neuron firing patterns. 

In order to heal, you must maintain motion and stability in the system. We accomplish this proprioceptively by harnessing your body’s sensory-motor loops, and then push “corrected” postural signals to the “uprighting” systems of the head and neck, upper trunk, shoulder and jaw–it works instantly and persistently. The effects are felt all the way down to your feet, leveling hips, trunk and legs!

Our proprietary Equibite Atlas Stabilization system imprints the corrected upright posture cues onto our Equibite orthotic through a bite-registration process. This is a novel Cranio-Cervical Mandibular Registration (CCMR) technology of our own invention. When the Equibite is worn as prescribed, it influences the highly sophisticated nervous system sensory-motor loops of the body. 

Thoughtfully and gently taking the reins of the bite, (teeth posture in occlusion) enables us to reprogram the “posture” of the muscles of the head, throat, mouth, face, neck and shoulders. When all of these muscles are balanced and working together dynamically, they work to stabilize the Atlas. When the atlas is stable under the skull base, the body does not twist and turn in compensation below.

The result is a balanced body, healthier nervous system, better sleep, better energy and… a Better You!