Dr. Roubal's Omaha, Nebraska blog

Omaha, Nebraska

* required |Privacy Policy

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Headaches and Medications

Why are long term medications bad?

Because medications have side effects!! And, as the source of the headaches is not being treated, just the symptoms, the pain or dysfunction tends to get worse as time passes. So, more medication/different medications are needed for different symptoms that are "coming out" or as the level of the symptoms are increasing. You can see the ever increasing cascade of problems that are happening due to treatment of symptoms vs treating the cause of the problem.

Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 3:30 PM

Friday, November 20, 2009

Morning Headaches

Why do people have morning headaches?

Most common reasons are sleep issues such as sleep apnea, stress, pain somewhere, parafunctional jaw issues, etc. that can cause jaw clenching and tooth grinding. These jaw activities can cause tremendous pain as the forces exerted during sleep can be many, many times the day time forces generated by biting the teeth together. I also screen virtually every one of my headache patients for sleep apnea. Many times as we treat the sleep apnea, the morning headaches diminish or are eliminated.

Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 12:53 PM

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Headaches and Medications

A lot of patients who come to me for headache relief are on many medications. These medications have been prescribed to help with patient's symptoms. So, many patients come in taking medications for issues other than the obvious need for pain pills. For their headaches the most common symptoms are difficulty sleeping, anxiety or stress and depression. There are physiologic reason these symptoms occur and my job is to uncover the cause of these symptoms. If you treat the cause of the symptoms, you don't need to medicate the symptoms.

Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 5:24 PM

Friday, November 13, 2009

Posture and Pain

On the TMD syndrome issues, if the jaw alignment is incorrect (this can result from many different things) the back and neck alignment is incorrect more times than note. I always look at posture and refer when necessary for physical therapy or chiropractic care. These postural alignment problems also can result in headaches. I find aligning the jaw first helps the patient and the doctor to do their work more effectively.

Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 11:11 AM

Jaw Clicking and Youth

I have had several young patients recently who have had rather severe headache issues. One is so bad that she may need to repeat her school year because she is missing so much school. One common item on all of these patients is a clicking or popping jaw joint. This can be part of the TMD syndrome, one of the most common complains is headache. If your teenager is complaining of jaw joint noise, do not ignore this as left untreated, many more problems can develop.

Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 10:54 AM

Friday, November 6, 2009

Posture and Headaches

Usually if the posture of a person is incorrect, the jaw position is incorrect as well. This can lead to neck and jaw pain as well as severe headaches. We have a rather complicated, interconnected body. If one part of us is hurting, it can spread like a wild fire. I always do a postural evaluation of my incoming new patients who present for treatment of headaches, or "TMD" related problems. Of course, if these body postural issues co-exist, I refer to the appropriate professional for treatment. It is my task to align the jaws which does allow the "body" professional to do their work faster and more efficiently.



Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 10:04 AM

Different Dental Materials

One concern that I have in looking at mouths is the various materials dentistry use in fillings and crowns. Natural teeth, white fillings, silver mercury fillings, gold and porcelain all wear at different rates. Why do we find it puzzling that so many people have bite problems with resultant headaches, jaw pain, ear pain, neck pain, ect? Dentistry done in response to something breaking should be a sign something is wrong with the entire system. It's a good thing we had a good designer who built in the ability to adopt to things wrong in the system. Pain and dysfunction result when the system is overwhelmed and a cannot adopt any longer. It (pain or dysfunction) is our call to pay attention and seek out help.



Yours for better health, Dr. R

posted by Dr. Roubal at 9:58 AM

Dental Appointments and Pain (continued)

As I have virtually limited my practice to treating headache and facial pain patients, the dental patient who experiences facial pain and dysfunction after "routine" dentist appointments is getting to be a more common patient in my practice. Especially after a long appointment, or a crown placement. The longer one has the mouth open, the more likely muscle problems arise. Most of our pain problems are from muscle, some from the TM joints themselves. The crown is another story; the crown is made of very wear resistant material and if it is not placed and adjusted perfectly then pain will ultimately result. Patients should ask their doctors for time breaks to rest the muscles and joints, or ask for a mouth prop to help hold open the jaw during lengthy appointments. If the crow doesn't "feel right" after a day or two, go back and have it checked.



Yours for better health, Dr. Roubal

posted by Dr. Roubal at 9:48 AM

Welcome to the iHATEheadaches website, please upgrade your Flash Plugin and enable JavaScript.