How we decide what to publish
This site covers two different kinds of subject. Some of it is care we provide at Restorative Wellness Center. The rest is education about methods and products we do not provide, and we label which is which on every page.
Health writing online has a simple problem. A thing that might work biologically gets described as a thing that does work in people, and the two sentences look identical to a reader. Most of what follows is our attempt not to do that.
How we grade evidence
Every guide gives each method one of five scores.
Established. Good randomized evidence, in people like you, measuring something you would actually care about.
Moderate. Randomized evidence exists. It is mixed, or small, or short, or it studied a different group of people.
Preliminary. There is a plausible biological explanation and some early human work. There is no good trial yet.
Insufficient. The question has been asked and the answer is not in yet.
Not recommended. Either the risk outweighs anything shown, or a regulator has raised a concern.
Alongside the score we publish the likely benefit, the downsides, the cost, the hassle, who should avoid it, and how much first-hand experience I have with it. That last one includes “none”. If I have read about something and never used it, the page says so.
The difference between how something works and whether it works
Light is absorbed by parts of your cells. That is a mechanism, and it is real. Whether shining a light on your jaw reduces your pain is a different question, and it is answered by trials, not by mechanisms. When we describe a mechanism we say that is what we are doing.
Who writes this and who checks it
I write it. I am Kyle Benton, DDS, FAACP, Fellow of the American Academy of Craniofacial Pain, and my practice is limited to TMJ and TMD, orofacial and craniofacial pain, sleep-disordered breathing, and regenerative dentistry.
That limit matters here. I review what falls inside it. Where a subject falls outside it, the page says so plainly and tells you what I am and am not in a position to judge. Some subjects on our list are not published at all for that reason.
Money
Some links on this site earn a commission. Every one of those is disclosed right next to the recommendation, not only at the bottom of a page. Our full financial disclosure lists every relationship we have.
Being paid does not change what we recommend, and saying that is not enough on its own. So where we recommend a product we publish the criteria we used, what we actually did with it, and who should skip it.
Dates
Pages show when they were published and when the sources were last read again. Emerging subjects get looked at every six months, and anything with an open FDA question every three. We do not change the date on a page unless somebody actually reviewed it.
When we get it wrong
We correct it, we date it, and we say what changed. We do not quietly edit and move on. Our corrections page explains how that works and lists them.
Research tools
We use AI tools for research and drafting, the way we use a search engine and a word processor. We do not use them as a source. Every citation on this site was opened and read by a person before it was published. No statistic, dose, credential, or piece of personal experience on this site was generated by a model.
Tell us if we are wrong
If something here looks wrong to you, say so. You do not need to be a clinician and you do not need a citation.