Does your face, jaw, or head ever ache? Do you grind or clench your teeth? Does your jaw click upon opening or closing? Does your jaw ever feel stiff, tight, or tired? Do you have difficulty opening your mouth wide? You might be experiencing temporomandibular dysfunction!!! This can happen to anyone with a mouth. That’s right, children, teens, adults, and seniors! The temporomanidublar joint (TMJ) is your jaw joint, located just in front of your ear. Disorders of the TMJ involve the muscles of mastication (chewing muscles) and associated structures and tissues of the face, head, and neck. TMJ disorders are relatively common with a prevalence of 22-59%! Symptoms include clicking, irregular j
Shortly before our official opening, Dr. Everett was presented a very special family heirloom plate by his grandfather, Evert. Find the full story below. "This memorial Delfts Blue plate, now displayed in my office, was given to my great-great grandfather Everhardus. H (Evert) Gerretsen in 1935. He received it recognizing his 40 years of service as Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Protestant hospital in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This hospital merged later with the Roman Catholic hospital and is now a major teaching hospital in the country. This genuine plate was passed on to my grandfather (Evert) who presented it to me on the opening day of our clinic." Dr. Everett and his plate
Does it ever feel like you have a tight band squeezing around your head? Does this tight band-like sensation develop into a headache? Your poor posture may be at fault! You! Yes, you! But don’t worry, you’re not alone! It has been demonstrated that poor posture plays a key role in the development of trigger points in muscles, and in the case of headaches, muscles of the head and neck. Poor posture places abnormal strain on muscles, creating painful “knots” in the muscles which may send pain to other areas in the head and neck, experienced as headaches. Additionally, extra strain on joints in the neck may lead to joint dysfunction, pain, and referral of pain, developing into a headache. How c
Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with tissue damage or potential tissue damage. Pain is usually caused by a noxious (painful) stimulus but may be experienced in the absence of stimulus. PHYSICAL PAIN (nociception) The brain is made aware of painful stimuli in the following steps: 1. Painful stimuli alert pain receptors (A-delta for temperature change, or C-fibres for pressure and heat/burning). 2. Pain message is sent along the peripheral nerve (eg. from your finger to the brain) to the spinal cord. 3. The pain message travels up the spinal cord into the brain. An acute stimulus will lead to excitatory pain signals sent to the brain. This means, if
Hi Everyone! It has been a long, long summer. Endless days and nights renovating and working hard in the clinic included ripping out a full bullpen of desks and the floor, building a gym, installing new floor, mirror wall, gym equipment, painting the entire clinic, staining every piece of wood in the building, and lots of decoration. We could not have done it without the help of our family and friends. Seriously, you guys rock. A million, billion, gagillion thank yous to you!!! We are super happy and very proud to announce that we open our doors tomorrow, October 1st, 2015! Wahoo! Yippee! Yay! Here is a sneak peek of the clinic, but you will have to come say hi to see the rest! We hope to se
