Hello, my name is Steve Levitt and welcome to my Blog. I'm a physician with 34 years of experience treating patients and conducting research on temporomandibular disorders (sometimes called "TMD" or "TMJ") and chronic pain. Prior to my MD, my PhD research involved the study of the inorganic component of teeth and bones. I was an NIH Research Fellow during medical school at Case Western Reserve Univ, and did my Psychiatry Residency at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In 1979 I joined the Clinical Faculty, Dept. of Psychiatry at the U.N.C. School of Medicine. As Adjunct Associate Professor for 18 years I was Psychiatric Consultant to the dentists and physicians of the U.N.C. Clinical Pain Program. In 1982 I co-founded Pain Resource Center, Inc., a company devoted to developing clincial evaluation tools in the field of chronic pain and TM disorders. I directed research programs which led to development of the "TMJ Scale" used by dentists and TMJ Specialists to screen for and measure the symptoms of temporomandibular disorders, and the 'Chronic Pain Battery' for chronic pain evaluation and treatment.