On learning about the astonishing results of orthocraniodontics—a treatment field that is innovative for our country—many people wear themselves out searching for a highly skilled specialist. Not everyone manages to see its founder, Dr Savinov, so people desperately search for doctors using his method. I saw this personally when, after I left a comment on one website, people found me by name through Google and even wrote to me on YouTube asking for help with their search. So on this page I will share a list of pupils of the now-legendary Savinov and some of my observations about online reviews of some of them.

Alexey Olegovich Savinov lives and works in Volgograd. As I mentioned, getting an appointment with him is extremely difficult, though possible. Many complain that ‘his waiting list stretches a hundred years into the future’, and because he is overloaded, he does not publish his contact details anywhere. When I personally tried to get through, I cunningly obtained his administrator’s telephone number from one of Savinov’s patients. When I called, they questioned me at length about where I had got it and strictly forbade me to give it to anyone else. But later I saw that, if you look very carefully, the contacts can still be found on forums—for example, http://forum.stom.ru (Savinov’s nickname there is Skip) and Savinov’s forum, http://www.orthocranio.ru (I found that it is currently offline for technical work). You can also try contacting Savinov on Facebook. His son Dmitry Savinov uses the same method, and you can try contacting him there too. I do not want to create extra problems for them, but I could not avoid giving at least some approximate information here about how to find them.

Specialists Using Savinov’s Method

Here many people immediately ask whether Savinov’s pupils can be trusted. After all, he himself has more than twenty years of experience and of ‘pulling through’ extremely difficult patients—can his pupils work with the same results? On Savinov’s forum, many asked whether he could recommend any of them. He remained silent for a long time, but in 2016 he replied with the names of Roman Filatov and Filipp Palivoda from Moscow. For me, that alone would mean a great deal. And although the list of specialists he recommends has most likely grown by now, everyone must decide for themselves whether to trust the doctors I list below.

Personally, I would follow my intuition—that feeling in your ‘gut’ that says yes or no. It is difficult to say anything definitive here. A doctor may seem young and inexperienced but be talented enough to pull you back almost from the other world. Or they may have hundreds of certificates and diplomas and be an idiot who takes all your money and leaves you disabled. Or they may sincerely want to help but cause harm through lack of knowledge. It also matters very much what they are like as a person. Personally, I would not be treated by a doctor with whom I had no human connection. It may seem a ‘small thing’, as though ‘all that matters is that the specialist is good’, but it matters to me, full stop. It is frightening to face the cold arrogance of someone on whom your health depends, especially when suffering from TMD already leaves you physically and psychologically on the edge. It is frightening to lose your health completely after unsuccessful treatment and feel the bitterness of a condescending attitude and advice to ‘see a psychotherapist’, when the ‘specialist’ may in fact be a ‘partly educated scholar’ with an inflated ego.

In each case, it is important to read online reviews (more on this below), try to talk to the doctor’s patients and, of course, listen to your intuition. For understandable reasons, patients with TMD do not have all that much time to deliberate, but a great deal really does depend on the right choice. For example, here you can read about an ‘American’s adventures in Russia’, though I would call them misadventures: how an ordinary American guy worked in Russia and Ukraine for a long time and, suffering from TMD, rushed from specialist to specialist, later continuing in other countries where he worked. His account will also help you understand why mouthguards do not help in TMD cases (the method he ultimately used differs from orthocraniodontics, but the latter actually has a much broader range of tools and therapeutic effects—information about this will also appear on the pages of this blog).

Another important point that makes it difficult to assess treatment effectiveness with a chosen specialist is that, at the start of TMD treatment, a patient usually expects a miracle. They think someone will put a ‘magic appliance’ in their mouth and life will immediately become bright and colourful. That is not how it works. Relief really should come immediately, though not always—everything depends on the complexity of the case. Effectiveness can be assessed after three or six months (when improvement and deterioration alternate in waves, but the ‘negative’ part gradually becomes smaller and shorter, while in the ‘positive’ part the periods of improvement grow longer and more intense).

Only after a year to a year and a half can you feel real results—and even then they are not final! (At least, that is how it happened for me and the people I managed to talk to.) If you still have no real results by then, that is a serious reason to think. But you can recognise it earlier too: if you do not have the progressively improving waves described above, and the periods of deterioration decrease neither in duration nor intensity, something is definitely wrong. Likewise, sharp pain lasting for weeks is not normal either. You can read more about what happens during treatment here. I will probably end my introduction at this point and ‘read out the whole list’, starting with Moscow. After that, the cities where specialists using Savinov’s method see patients will be listed alphabetically.

Attention! Update of 10 April 2019: Here you can see a still-unconfirmed list of orthocraniodontists in different cities in Russia, Ukraine and other CIS and nearby countries.

❗️Update of 30 November 2021: Unfortunately, I now have negative reviews about all the known doctors, including the Moscow doctors A. Tovmasyan and M. Nasyrov, and the Italian craniodontist Alberto Stefanelli: people were literally harmed by excessive treatment while paying enormous sums. Anna was treated by Tovmasyan and developed degenerative changes in two regions of her spine. One person treated by Stefanelli had a similar outcome. But there are also several people who improved. That is the only reason I am not removing this information. According to the accounts, people feel better with appliances but experience agonising symptoms when braces are fitted and their skull begins to be moved. At present, I believe that much gentler methods such as mewing (finger techniques) and the Starecta splint can replace doctors when you act on your own (without such outrageous expense) and listen to your body during treatment. We already have a huge number of people who have gained significant health improvements by using these methods independently. I consider it necessary to describe honestly all the information I have received from people over these four years.

The policy of this blog is not to recommend doctors. You make the decision yourself, and all responsibility for that choice rests with you.

Russia

Moscow

Olga Baranova www.o-baranova.ru
Sadly, a less-than-positive review of this doctor has appeared on our forum.

Ion Viktorovich Fedelenchuk
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004606779737

This doctor does not specifically use Savinov’s method, but I saw his work in Facebook comments at Savinov’s Training Centre, so I cannot leave out his contact details here, since he also works with the AGGA appliance. He has a private practice in Moscow, but as far as I learned, he also lives in Bălți, Moldova, so perhaps he sees patients there too (if so, please say so in the comments—it would be a great option for people in Moldova).

Ani Tovmasyan https://www.instagram.com/dr_tovmasyani/ (you can see examples of her work at the link); a review of this doctor is already on our forum.

Ivan Solop (Odintsovo)
http://medbooking.com/doctor/solop-aleksandrovich

We already have a couple of reviews of this doctor—they recommend him.

Anapa

Roman Sergeyevich Novichenko
клиника-новиченко.рф

Vladivostok

Pavel Li
http://ortodontics.ru/specialisty/li_pavel_viktorovich/

This specialist trained with Savinov, but according to the latest reviews from patients who have consulted him, he works more with the method of Austrian doctor Jürgen André, using intraoral activators.

Anna Stoletnyaya
https://prodoctorov.ru/vladivostok/vrach/92504-stoletnyaya/

According to the latest reviews, this specialist is ‘not very sure of what she is doing’, so judge for yourselves. Perhaps we will receive other reviews with time.

Volgograd

Elena Rudas
http://34grad.ru/doctors/4028-rudas-elena-aleksandrovna

According to the latest reviews, the doctor sees mostly children and rarely adults, because she believes that adults with TMD often develop persistent psychosomatic problems that are difficult to work with.

Grozny (Chechen Republic)

Khamzat Magamadov. Examples of his work: https://www.instagram.com/dr.hamzat_ortodont/
More details are on our forum.

Krasnodar

Lyudmila Popkova, works at Etalon Clinic (http://etalon-dent.ru/)

This specialist’s lightwire appliances are posted at Savinov’s Training Centre on Facebook, with extremely positive comments from A. O. Savinov.

Roman Borisovich Yeromshenko
https://prodoctorov.ru/krasnodar/vrach/758-ermoshenko/

I learned about him only from a comment on this article; it says he studied with Savinov. If you have more detailed information, please write.

Rostov-on-Don

Salih Aziev
https://stim-centre.ru/specialists/aziev-salikh-eldarovich-/

https://prodoctorov.ru/rostov-na-donu/vrach/390298-aziev/

Work on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saliheldarovich

Instagram: @salih_eldarovich

Elena Leonidovna Vedernikova
https://prodoctorov.ru/rostov-na-donu/vrach/193570-vedernikova/

The clinic where this doctor sees patients contacted me and insistently, and not particularly politely, asked me to provide the information that treatment involves a posturologist and a craniosacral osteopath.
Instagram: @dentalspa_rostov

Saint Petersburg

Ketevan Zubova
http://asgardmed.ru/content/zubova-ketevan-nugzarovna

Samara

Vadim Viktorovich Kuratnik
https://prodoctorov.ru/samara/vrach/187284-kuratnik/

Maxim Denisov
https://m.vk.com/page-106962456_55507073

Tyumen

Irina Vorontsova
https://prodoctorov.ru/tyumen/vrach/269190-voroncova/

Anna Chakhchakhova
http://aldentis.ru/stomatologi/chahchahova-anna-emzarovna

Ufa

Aigul Favisovna Khairutdinova
More detailed information about this doctor and her contacts has already appeared on our forum.

Ukraine

Kyiv

Viktoria Viktorovna Vovk—works at the dental centre at O. O. Bohomolets University, Department of Prosthetic Dentistry, right wing, second floor
viktorija.viktorovna.vovk@gmail.com

One day I will write about how I learned about this doctor. She works on very complex problems of dystonia, vascular problems, torticollis, Tourette’s and Parkinson’s syndromes, facial paresis and other neurological conditions. More on this subject is here.

Viktor Nikolayevich Kryzhanovsky—dentist, chief physician at SKD Functional Dentistry Centre and chief physician at PerioCenter, a periodontology centre in Kyiv.
https://skdent.com.ua
http://101stomatolog.com.ua/specialisty/krizhanovskij-viktor-nikolaevich-s.k.dent.html
https://www.facebook.com/viktor.kryzhanovskyi

Alexander Yuryevich Opekha—prosthodontist at SKD Functional Dentistry Centre
https://skdent.com.ua
http://101stomatolog.com.ua/specialisty/opeha-aleksandr-yurevich-s.k.dent.html
https://www.facebook.com/opehas

Odesa

Boris Vladimirovich Svintsitsky
https://www.048.ua/catalog/index/1043024/svincickij-boris-vladimirovic-stomatolog-ortodont

This is only a tiny list of the doctors using Savinov’s method whom I managed to find. In reality there are dozens of times more, considering that hundreds of specialists have already attended Savinov’s seminars and practical sessions with him. If you know such a specialist in your city, please write about them in the comments. I have tried to be as objective as possible in presenting the information I learned. I hope it will help you make a considered and, above all, correct decision on which your health and quality of life will depend.

ALF orthodontics: what it is—here.

Craniodontics: the best specialists abroad—here.
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Images and photographs are from http://dantesage.ru, facebook.com, https://dentalmagazine.ru and https://olgasmile.ru