Posts Tagged ‘Physicians’

Chronic Headache and Pains May Now be Alleviated by Dentistry

Help for shoulder pain

If you suffer from chronic headaches and other pains, there is help available. You don’t have to live with debilitating headaches and pain that you may have suffered with for years. Neuromuscular dentistry can often treat chronic headaches and other pain, alleviating these symptoms and allowing you to get back to living a pain-free life.

Types of Pain Neuromuscular Dentistry Treats

Neuromuscular dentistry can not only treat chronic headaches, it can offer relief from other symptoms as well, including:

These symptoms are things that regular physicians are often unable to treat because they cannot locate a cause. Neuromuscular dentists know the relationship between all of the symptoms and what the underlying cause is likely to be.

Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMD)

Often the symptoms described above have one underlying cause: temporomandibular joint disorder or TMD. This is a disorder of the temporomandibular joint (the joint where the lower jaw is attached to the skull). If you have a bad bite (known as malocclusion) your upper and lower teeth don’t close together correctly when you bite. You may have an overbite or an underbite. Continual use of biting forces when the bite is misaligned causes strain on the muscles involved in chewing and swallowing. This strain is then carried out throughout other muscles causing pain in more and more places including:

Even though it is difficult to believe that all of this pain can be radiating out from one joint it is indeed true. That is why some people suffer through painful symptoms for years. But they no longer need to suffer.

How Neuromuscular Treatment Alleviates Chronic Headaches and Pains

Treatment from a neuromuscular dentist looks at how the jaw joint moves through a variety of diagnostic tools. Then the dentist determines the optimal physiologic position of the jaw. This optimal position is determined through analyzing where the head and neck muscles are most relaxed, and then repositioning the jaw to this location. This is achieved through the use of an orthotic and/or by repositioning teeth into their ideal locations. If you would like to learn more about neuromuscular dentistry, a good resource is Dr. Gordon Chee of Calgary’s website.

Use ice to decrease pain

Preventing Rotator Cuff Tendonitis and Shoulder Disease in Swimmers

Help for shoulder pain

Shoulder pain is a condition that afflicts many of today’s athletes, and swimmers are not immune. Swimming typically involves a fair amount of freestyle swimming stroke, which is a stroke that requires the shoulder to continually rotate. It has been said that high level competitive swimmers will have as many as 16,000 arm rotations a week. The motion required for a traditional freestyle stroke, when repeated over and over, causes significant strain on the shoulder – strain that the shoulder may not be ready for.

Most people are shocked to hear of such a condition arising from what physicians (myself include) label as a safe and healthy sport. Swimming is still a very safe form of exercise and competition, but there is a risk of over using the shoulder through the course of competition.

Over use is defined as using a body part in a repetitive way beyond which it was designed. This stress can, at times, lead to impingement upon the superspinatus tendon, which oftentimes is only the first of a cascade of injuries that lead to a full blown case of rotator cuff tendonitis. Rotator cuff tendonitis is a condition causes significant shoulder pain. It more frequently limits a swimmer’s training schedule due to shoulder pain.

As is often the case with sports injuries, shoulder disease and rotator cuff tendonitis can be avoided. Firstly, it is helpful to understand the anatomy of the rotator cuff in order to understand why certain exercises will mitigate the risk of a condition.

The rotator cuff consists of four muscles, the superspinatus is only one of four muscles. The superspinatus is also the muscle that is most stressed and at times the one most warn down by free stroke swimming. Swimmers need to understand that there are three other muscles of the rotator cuff that need to be strengthened in order to form a strong shoulder that will be able to handle the stresses they put the joint through.

Trying to balance out the amount of freestyle strokes with another stroke that will use some of the other three muscles, such as a backstroke, will help prevent shoulder conditions. The backstroke itself is best for strengthening the infraspinatus muscle of the rotator cuff.

Additionally, in order to further diversify the workout regiment in order to benefit the most muscles of the shoulder, I typically recommend that swimmers include a slightly weighted jump rope at the end or beginning of their swimming workout.

The swimmer needs to jump rope by keeping the arms low, and will find the most benefit by repeating the jump rapidly, which will serve to strengthen the other three muscles of the rotator cuff. This allows for balance within the very complex shoulder joint and specifically the structure of the rotator cuff. This will go a long way towards helping prevent swimmer’s shoulder. Specifically, I typically recommend the blue jump rope put out by Lifeline Fitness. It’s called a speed/workout jump rope.

Problems with shoulders are common with both high level and low level competitive and fitness swimming. It is important to address this problem early. It is important to understand that the shoulder needs balance in its strength. Again, I recommend to my swimmers that they employ usually some increase backstroke and again I recommend using a weighted jump rope for ten minutes of jumping rope at the beginning or end of their practice. This will hopefully prevent shoulder pain, shoulder disease, and allow people to enjoy the rather incredible and unique sport of swimming which I uniformly recommend as an excellent form of low impact exercise.

Use ice to decrease pain

Shoulder Pain and Rotator Cuff Injuries: Getting More Info

Help for shoulder pain

When you go into your physician with complaints of longstanding shoulder pain, he may or may not recommend imaging of the shoulder. The fact of the matter is much of shoulder pain can be diagnosed without the use of any imaging technologies. However, if the physician is interested in finding more information, the specific technology that he uses depends upon his own diagnosis and the questions he is trying to answer.

It is because of the different results that will come from each type of imaging technology that physicians can simply go through a process to decide which tool to use – a process of elimination according to what each reveals.

Plain x-rays – the old fashioned x-rays – will give you good information about the bones. Is there any arthritis? Are there any bone fractures? In deed, in one of the fairly common problems called calcific tendonitis, one of the tendons becomes calcified and essentially starts to turn to bone – this is a phenomenon that can be picked up on x-rays. Certainly cancer, tumors, all these things, if they involve the bone, can be picked up on plain x-rays as well. However, the ability of an x-ray to reveal cancer is restricted because if it is not within the bone, than cancerous bodies escape the attention of the basic x-ray film.

Magnetic Residence Imaging, or MRI, is technology that’s been around since the early 80s and it is the best way we have to look at soft tissues. This means that the MRI will reveal tumors that are not involved in the bone, and even more information about the soft tissues in the area being surveyed. An MRI will also show abnormalities, ruptures, or inflammation of the tendon – all which are hidden to an x-ray. The MRI technology will also reveal bone fractures that are not seen on plain x-rays – which happens up to 10% of the time. When it comes to an MRI, it essentially gives the most information without any cutting into the shoulder to look at it.

Ultrasound is a new modality, and it is very useful. You do need to understand its limitations. Ultrasound will basically tell you how someone superspinatis tendon is. Now, keep in mind, the superspinatis tendon is where most of the problems originate with the rotator cuff. And many times, we will get an ultrasound if we want to find out if its’ worth while to try to treat someone conservatively. Basically, if a superspinatis tendon is just showing partial tears or inflammation or swelling, then this person will likely get better without any type of surgery. Even moderate tears can shown on ultrasound, can very frequently be healed without surgery; however, if there is a complete tear in the tendon then there is actually retraction on both sides – so there is basically a separation between the tear – there’s not a great place for physical therapy in my opinion. So, the ultrasound is a one trick pony, but it can be quite practical and can give us a dream life if we really push the non-surgical rehabilitation aggressively.

By being aware of what each imaging technology reveals about the tissues and bones underneath the skin, doctors are able to get a lot more information about a shoulder condition without having any invasive procedure. Whether its an x-ray, MRI or ultrasound, all are informational tools physicians can use to help patients who are suffering from long-term shoulder pain.

Use ice to decrease pain