Dr. Grasso is a General Dentist with over thirty years of experience in private practice.  In 1980, he began taking post-graduate orthodontic classes.  The clinicians teaching these courses were not academics, but were hands-on dentists with patient treatment experience as their source of information.  They saw many flaws in the results of conventional orthodontics, primarily, the damage to the TM joints, and the resultant compromise to the faces of the orthodontic patients.  Dr. Grasso shared their concerns about conventional, cosmetic, tooth alignment and became a student of their Functional Orthopedic/ Orthodontic approach to correcting dental imbalances.  He joined the American Association For Functional Orthodontics in 1986.  Since then, he has treated hundreds of patients using a wide array of functional removable and fixed appliances to establish skeletal (orthopedic) balance before applying braces to straighten the teeth, if tooth straightening was even required.  Often times, the skeletal corrections allowed for the proper eruption alignment of the teeth and braces were not required.

Proper treatment of imbalances of the skeletal and dental components is not possible without first establishing healthy TMJ’s.  This is why so many past orthodontic patients have dramatic relapses back to crowded teeth, often times inspite of having adult teeth removed.  It is also why adolescents and adults suffer Temporomandibular Dysfunction Syndrome (TMDS) after dental treatment. 

So, Dr. Grasso's focus is first and foremost on the temporomandibular joints.  Then, the skeletal balance follows and finally, the teeth are restored or aligned to support the healthy joints.  This is a very natural approach to achieving stability within the stomatognathic system and for creating a full smile.  It also improves head posture and therefore is a primary treatment for cervical spinal imbalances.