The Entrepreneur Must Be Able to Observe the Obvious

Dr. Tony Urbanek

Others have called me a serial entrepreneur. I’m not flattered by that expression. I have been involved in founding businesses in medicine/dentistry, one classified as a medical device manufacturer. I hold a patent and separate FDA approvals for the device and its manufacturing facility. I have founded two third-world medical clinics, an aviation business, and led large organizations in aviation and medicine.

I like to fix things.

When I was a kid, I liked to fix anything I could find around the house that was broken. Sometimes I was successful, and sometimes I wasn’t. I still like to fix things. Fixing things is the second most joyful pursuit in my life. Having and building my family is the first. I can’t always fix everything for everyone in my family. My favorite phrase with them is, “You’ll figure it out”.

I have had some successes and failures in life. I went to college and hated it. They were teaching me things I would never be able to use. I almost quit and took up fixing real estate in Florida. But I stuck it out because I did not want to disappoint my father, whose sole purpose in life was to see his children educated. I graduated with a degree in Chemistry, and enough credits in Philosophy and Theology to have claimed them as my major. I graduated with a 2.7 GPA, precisely in the middle of my class. I thought college was a failure.

My next step was dental school because my older brother was a dentist. Everyone thought he was successful. When I got to dental school I was immediately confronted by the “basic sciences.” Those are the first two years of training in how the body works, (Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, Neuroanatomy, Biochemistry). I was fascinated by learning how the body works. I thought this was information I could use. If I learned how the body works, I could fix it when it was broken. I excelled in dental school. I graduated at the top of my class Summa Cum Laude. I spent my senior year in dental school studying for a Masters Degree in Cell Biology/Anatomy and graduated with a DDS, MS

My next stop was Vanderbilt in Nashville, where I received my MD and trained as an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon. I was even awarded a grant from the NIH/NIDCR to study how bone growth causes funny-looking faces. Besides fixing lots of funnylooking faces, cleft palates, and damaged nerves and bones, I learned how to fix damage to the TMJ. My training placed me on the cutting edge of the most current and complicated surgical procedures used to fix patients with the devastating symptoms of TMD/TMJ. The accepted symptoms of TMD/TMJ are frequent and recurrent headache, earache, neck pain, ringing in the ears, subjective hearing loss, (fullness in the ears), vertigo, upper back and shoulder tightness and pain, arm/hand/and finger tingling and numbness, and various types of jaw locking. These symptoms, if left uncorrected, ruin lives. Patients with TMD/ TMJ often have these symptoms for decades and go from doctor to doctor looking for relief. Physicians routinely misdiagnose these symptoms as migraine headaches, ear infections, Meniere’s Disease, and various types of neurological problems. Dental professionals most often treat TMD/TMJ with night guards, which don’t help, or just avoid treating these patients. The consensus among patients and doctors is “Everyone knows nothing works when it comes to TMD/TMJ.”

All the surgery I did on funny-looking faces, cleft palates, damaged nerves and bones remained fixed once completed. This type of surgery was always successful. But I observed 50% of the TMD/TMJ patients would return in 6 months to 2 years with the same complaints. As a young surgeon I remember having a much more experienced surgeon tell me “It makes no difference what kind of TMJ surgery is performed, they all work – for a while.” I should have listened to him. I would have saved myself a lot of frustration. But as a young surgeon I liked to fix things and I thought the problem was no one figured out what kind of surgery would work best. I was going to figure it out. So, I tried them all. Sometimes hundreds of times. Over the first 30 years of my career, I performed over 2000 TMJ surgical procedures. As I continued listening to my surgical colleagues, attending conferences, reading journals and textbooks on the surgical correction of TMD/TMJ, I became more disheartened with the results. I was used to fixing things. During my career we even learned how to replace missing teeth with dental implants. We certainly could learn how to fix TMD surgically, couldn’t we?

It was a dark and cold winter weekend at home when I started reviewing my 30 year experience treating the enigma known at

TMJ. Yes, there were successful cases, but 50% failure was just too much. I could not justify telling my patients there was only a 50/50 chance their surgery would be successful.

Monday morning, I announced to my staff that going forward I would no longer treat TMJ patients. They were quite surprised since a large part of the practice revolved around TMJ surgery. We were known as “the” TMJ surgical specialist in Middle Tennessee. I was defeated. But I wasn’t finished.

I have two core beliefs. “If you can properly identify and define the problem you can create a solution,” and “If you can’t find the answer to a problem you are looking in the wrong place, asking the wrong person, or the wrong question.” With my experience doing research for the National Institutes of Health I was not intimidated by research.

I told my staff that I wanted to invite all future TMD/TMJ patients for a consultation but not for surgery. We had a long line of patients seeking help and I was going to try to figure out the solution starting by listening to my patients. Instead of taking a brief history and telling the patient what kind of surgery would best fit their symptoms, I enlisted my patients in figuring it out. I was going to start where the problem was located.

Over the next two or three months I interviewed 24 women, (90% of TMD/TMJ is seen in women). Sometimes I sat there for 30 or 45 minutes encouraging them to tell me everything they could about the problem. “What was the phase of the moon when it hurts?” “What does your husband think about the problem?” “Does the dog bark when it hurts?” “What makes it better?” “What makes it worse?” “What was the weather like when they had symptoms?” I would encourage them to tell me everything they could about the problem.

Twelve of those women had similar statements. “If I place a pencil eraser, my figure, my tongue, a piece of cloth between my front teeth and bite down gently, it feels better.” The light bulb flashed on, and I thought, “I wonder if I make something that goes between the front teeth that will not inhibit speech or swallowing and can be used 24/7, what will happen?”

I made a device of my own design and gave it to the first woman on my list who had 20 years of headache, earache, neck pain, and dizziness. I told her to keep it in her mouth 24/7 except when she eats and return in 3 weeks. When I walked into the exam room 3 weeks later and asked how she was doing she responded, “Thanks, doc, my pain is gone.” I took two steps back and nearly fell over. She looked at me strangely. That is where it all started. The rest is history.

After similar results with 30 additional patients, I had to figure out how this device and protocol worked. That is a technical story, but not complicated. All the information about how separating the posterior teeth over 2 months, followed by using the device while sleeping for the rest of the patient’s life, relieves each and every symptom has been in the scientific literature for connected the dots. chance of reaching their potential. With help from CrownBuyers, in 2023 27% MORE kids received clinical treatment from our safety-net dental clinic partners!

Spoiler Alert! TMD and Tennis Elbow are the same disease in different joints.

I was able to figure out this problem because I was able to observe the obvious.

It was obvious that some of my patients had relief by placing something between their front teeth. It was obvious that when they placed something between their front teeth it separated the posterior teeth. It was obvious that if you separated the posterior teeth, it took the load off the TMJ like a set of crutches would take the load off a damaged knee. It was obvious that both knee, elbow, and TMJ are inflamed when they are damaged. It was obvious that decreasing loads on joints decreases inflammation and pain. It was obvious that inflammation is the common denominator of TMD Symptoms. It was obvious that if you can unload the TMJ long enough, inflammation will decrease, and the symptoms will disappear.

My patients gave me the clue. They told me where to look. I looked there, and it was obvious.

If you are an entrepreneur, learn to ask the right questions from the right people. Listen to what is said and observe the obvious. You will then find the solution.

Dr. Tony Urbanek is a double degree Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon who has performed surgery for over 35 years. He decided to figure out a better solution to treating TMJ/ TMD and now teaches healthcare providers the solution for the debilitating symptoms of TMD using a patented, FDA-approved device and protocol.