Posts Tagged ‘New Fairfield Chiropractor’
Welcome to Chiropractic Life and Wellness Center's New Fairfield Chiropractor Archive. Here you can learn more about Chiropractic Life and Wellness Center, Chiropractic, and Dr. Brandon Chorney, today's choice for Chiropractors in New Fairfield, CT. Read Dr. Brandon Chorney's Chiropractic New Fairfield Chiropractor for the health of it.
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Jan 31, 2012 | Health Articles
Does it hurt when you chew, open wide to yawn or use your jaws? Do you have pain or soreness in front of the ear, in the jaw muscle, cheek, the teeth or the temples? Do you have pain or soreness in your teeth? Do your jaws make noises loud enough to bother you or others? Do you find it difficult to open your mouth wide? Does your jaw ever get stuck/locked as you open it?
If you answered “yes” to some of these questions, you may have a temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMD. TMD is a group of conditions, often painful, that affect the jaw joint.
Signs may include:
- Radiating pain in the face, neck, or shoulders;
- Limited movement or locking of the jaw;
- Painful clicking or grating when opening or closing the mouth;
- A significant change in the way the upper and lower teeth fit together;
- Headaches, earaches, dizziness, hearing problems and difficulty swallowing.
For most people, pain or discomfort in the jaw muscles or joints is temporary, often occurs in cycles, and resolves once you stop moving the area. Some people with TMD pain, however, can develop chronic symptoms. Your doctor of chiropractic can help you establish whether your pain is due to TMD and can provide conservative treatment if needed.
What Causes TMD?
Researchers agree that TMD falls into three categories:
- Myofascial pain: discomfort or pain in the muscles of the jaw, neck, and shoulders
- A dislocated jaw or displaced disc
- Degenerative joint disease, rheumatoid arthritis or osteoarthritis in the jaw joint.
Severe injury to the jaw is a leading cause of TMD. For example, anything from a hit in the jaw during a sporting activity to overuse syndromes, such as chewing gum excessively or chewing on one side of the mouth too frequently, may cause TMD.
Both physical and emotional stress can lead to TMD, as well. The once-common practice of sitting in a dentist’s chair for several hours with the mouth wide open may have contributed to TMD in the past. Now, most dentists are aware that this is harmful to the jaw. In addition to taking breaks while they do dental work, today’s dentists also screen patients for any weaknesses in the jaw structure that would make physical injury likely if they keep their mouths open very long. In that case, they may use medications during the procedure to minimize the injury potential, or they may send the patient to physical therapy immediately after treatment. In less severe cases, they instruct patients in exercises they can do at home to loosen up the joint after the visit.
While emotional stress itself is not usually a cause of TMD, the way stress shows up in the body can be. When people are under psychological stress, they may clench their teeth, which can be a major factor in their TMD.
Some conditions once accepted as causes of TMD have been dismissed: moderate gum chewing, non-painful jaw clicking, orthodontic treatment (when it does not involve the prolonged opening of the mouth, as mentioned above), and upper and lower jaws that have never fit together well. Popular theory now holds that while these may be triggers, they are not causes.
Women experience TMD four times as often as men. Several factors may contribute to this higher ratio, posture and higher heels.
TMD Diagnosis and Treatment
To help diagnose or rule out TMD, your doctor of chiropractic (DC) may ask you to put three fingers in your mouth and bite down on them. You may also be asked to open and close your mouth and chew repeatedly while the doctor monitors the dimensions of the jaw joint and the balance of the muscles. If you have no problems while doing these things, then the problem is not likely to be TMD. Your DC can then look for signs of inflammation and abnormalities. Sometimes special imaging, an x-ray or an MRI may be needed to help confirm the diagnosis.
If you have TMD, your doctor may recommend chiropractic manipulation, massage, applying heat/ice and special exercises. In most cases, your doctor’s first goal is to relieve symptoms, particularly pain. If your doctor of chiropractic feels that you need special appliances or splints (with the exception of the “waterpack” and other guards against teeth grinding), he or she will refer you to a dentist or orthodontist for co-management.
In addition to treatment, your doctor of chiropractic can teach you how to:
- Apply heat and ice to lessen the pain. Ice is recommended shortly after the injury or after your pain has started. In the later stages of healing, you need to switch to heat, especially if you are still experiencing discomfort.
- Avoid harmful joint movements. For example, chomping into a hard apple is just as bad as crunching into hard candy (some hard candies are even called “jawbreakers” for good reason). And giant sandwiches can cause the mouth to open too wide and have a destabilizing effect on the jaw.
Perform TMD specific exercises. Depending on your condition, your DC may recommend stretching or strengthening exercises. Stretching helps to loosen tight muscles and strengthening helps to tighten muscles that have become loose. Special feedback sensors in the jaw can be retrained, as well, if needed.
by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Aug 2, 2011 | Health Articles
In the past, a patient presenting to a doctor with rheumatoid arthritis would not be told to “take a hike”. First of all, that would have sounded rude, but as a genuine piece of advice it just didn’t figure in a doctor’s thoughts. Arthritis was looked on as a natural and unavoidable part of getting old, and was taken as a message that the patient had to ease back on their daily activities or risk aggravating the condition.
Not any more. Current research and clinical results tell us that an arthritis sufferer does not have to spend their remaining years popping pills and lying in bed.
What Is Rheumatoid Arthritis?
The word “arthritis” translates as “joint inflammation” and it is often used to describe an assortment of rheumatic diseases, of which there are more than 100 conditions. These include the commonly-known gout, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and psoriatic arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is also classified as a rheumatic disease and affects 2.1 million people in the United States, equating to around 1% of the population. Usually considered a disease of middle to old age, rheumatoid arthritis can also manifest in a person’s younger years.
The physical effects of rheumatoid arthritis include pain, swelling, stiffness, and a loss of function in the joints. It differs from other forms of arthritis by having the following characteristics:
- Joints that are tender, warm, and swollen.
- Fatigue, sometimes with a fever, and a general feeling of malaise.
- Pain and stiffness that lasts more than half an hour following a long rest.
- A symmetrical pattern of affected areas. Where one hand is affected, so is the other.
- Most frequently affected are the wrist and finger joints closest to the hand, although it can also take its toll on the joints of the neck, shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, ankle, and foot.
- The disease can persist for many years and may have systemic effects; that is, affect more than the joints.
Individuals can never know exactly what to expect with rheumatoid arthritis. It hits people in different ways. Some may suffer mildly for a few months then become symptom-free. Then again, symptoms of mild arthritis may last for years, with periodic flare-ups alternating with periods of remission. Cases of severe arthritis, on the other hand, tend to produce a chronic pain that does not retreat and ends up causing serious joint damage and disability.
What About Exercise?
Nowadays, regular exercise is seen as a crucial part of arthritis management because it helps to maintain muscle tone, joint mobility, overall flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, and weight control. However, there must be a balance between exercise and rest, because rest is also necessary to reduce joint inflammation, pain, and fatigue. How this is handled should be dictated by a person’s individual circumstances. During the active phase of arthritis, it is advisable to take more rest, while more exercise would be the prescription during periods of remission. When dealing with acute flare-ups affecting the whole system or acute local joint flares, the advice is that patients gently put their joints through a full range of motion once a day, interspersed with periods of rest. A healthcare professional will be able to advise on exactly what proportion of exercise/rest is best for the individual.
These are the exercises most commonly recommended for arthritis sufferers:
| Exercise |
Benefits |
Frequency |
| Range-of-motion, such as stretching and dance. |
Promotes normal joint movement and flexibility. |
Daily, or at least every other day. |
| Strengthening, such as weight lifting. |
Promotes muscle strength to support and protect affected joints. |
Every other day, unless severe pain and swelling restrict it. |
| Aerobic or endurance, such as walking, cycling, swimming. |
Promotes cardiovascular health, muscle tone and weight control. Swimming is the most low-impact and risk-free of these. |
Three times a week for 20 to 30 minutes, unless severe pain and swelling restrict it. |
|
Patients should talk to their healthcare provider if they experience any of the following:
- Fatigue that is unusually persistent or severe
- Increased weakness
- Restricted range of motion, beyond that normally suffered
- Increase in joint swelling
- Pain following exercise that persists for more than an hour
For an arthritis sufferer, the doctor of chiropractic will help create and hone their exercise programs to gain optimum results while minimizing any discomfort. Crucially, chiropractors can identify those exercises that are to be considered off-limits, according to the specific circumstances of the patient.
Nutrition for the Rheumatoid Arthritis Patient
The drug regimen for arthritis patients is aimed at suppressing the immune system and therefore slowing the progression of the disease, but an important complimentary approach lies in sticking to correct sources of nutrition. This can help to alleviate inflammation and retard the disease.
Some of the foods and nutritional supplements identified as useful for managing arthritis are:
- Fatty-acid supplements: eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and gamma linolenic acid (GLA). Some studies have shown that these supplements have efficacy in helping reduce pain and inflammation, thus lessening a patient’s dependence on corticosteroids. Deep-sea fish, such as salmon, tuna, herring and halibut are good sources of EPA and DHA. GLA is harder to find in food sources, as oppose to supplement form, but is present in foods such as black currants and borage seeds.
- The spice turmeric may also be helpful, and it has been shown that a 95% curcuminoid extract can significantly reduce inflammation and joint pain.
- Studies have also shown that ginger extract, nettle leaf extract, a vegetarian diet and a low-allergen diet can all help to reduce the pain and inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis.
Having said that, the benefits and risks of these agents and others are still being researched, therefore you should always consult with a healthcare professional before embarking on any change in diet or supplementation program. This is especially the case if you are taking doctor-prescribed medications for your condition.
How Can Your Doctor of Chiropractic Help?
Your doctor of chiropractic can help you plan an exercise program tailored to your individual circumstances, with the aim of:
- Helping restore to your joints any lost range of motion.
- Improving your flexibility and overall physical endurance.
- Increasing both your muscle tone and strength.
Chiropractors can also offer advice on optimizing your nutritional intake and on which supplements may be beneficial, all designed to reduce and control your joint pain and inflammation.
by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Jul 26, 2011 | Health Articles
If you have trouble sleeping, rest assured you are not the only one. Perhaps “rest assured” is the wrong phrase … Anyway, surveys into this problem reveal that between 40 and 60% of us don’t sleep as well as we’d like to. It may be down to money worries, family concerns, issues at work, aches...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | Jun 28, 2011 | Health Articles
There will always be some bright spark inventing a new-fangled way to exercise. Strange machines and contraptions and weird exercise routines. If that sort of thing appeals, then fine - so long as it does what it’s meant to do. One thing you may not have considered, though, is simply getting back to basics in...
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by Dr. Brandon Chorney | May 31, 2011 | Health Articles
Good computer ergonomics – our posture when we sit at our workstations – is important for children as well as for adults. According to a New York Times article, over 70% of America's 30 million elementary school students use computers. With the IT world we live in, the 30% that don’t soon will. While this...
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