Our Mission

Treating chronic pain, by definition, rarely involves any type of quick fix. Dr. Abdulla’s mission, at her practice in Laguna Hills, is to help patients manage their chronic head and neck pain as conservatively as possible. Dr. Abdulla will only treat a patient if she has a diagnosis, and the recommended treatment will be conservative and effective. If Dr. Abdulla is not able to treat your specific type of pain, she will refer you to one of her vast network of colleagues, which includes neurologists, neurosurgeons, ENT’s, pain psychologists, and many other healthcare practitioners.

Dr. Abdulla does not believe that patients who suffer from chronic pain in the head and neck need to have their teeth adjusted. She promises never to work on your teeth as treatment for head and neck pain, and will never tell you that you need to have all of your teeth crowned or capped, which is a common treatment plan prescribed by neuromuscular dentists. Neuromuscular dentists often have patients wear an appliance 24 hours a day for several months, which can change their bite.

While Dr. Abdulla and neuromuscular dentists agree that a lot of pain reported by patients is caused by muscles, they disagree on the best approach to treatment. Dr. Abdulla will treat muscular pain by treating the muscles, but neuromuscular dentists will treat the teeth, which makes no sense to Dr. Abdulla.

Since then, Dr. Abdulla has become one of a few Orange County dentists with extensive experience and specialized training in the treatment of sleep apnea and TMJ pain. As an American Board of Dental Sleep Medicine (ABDSM) Diplomate, she is qualified to use oral appliance therapy to treat obstructive sleep apnea. Additionally, having completed a TMJ and Orofacial Pain Mini-Residency at UCLA, she is an expert in using holistic, non-surgical methods to effectively treat TMJ pain disorders. To stay up to date on the latest advances in dental sleep medicine and oral appliance therapy, Dr. Abdulla regularly attends American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (AADSM) annual meetings. As a certified SMART dentist, she is qualified to perform safe amalgam filling removal, and offers non-toxic, mercury-free composite fillings as a biocompatible alternative.