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Chiropractic care, which includes a combination of spinal adjustments, muscular tension release and posture correction exercises are often used for headache management and prevention. In our office we also use nutritional therapy as an adjunct to headache management. Poor posture, constantly looking down at your cell phone, texting, sitting inappropriately and working at a computer all day are all main contributing factors to headaches and back pain. Regular chiropractic adjustments can effectively alleviate your tension, migraine, or cluster headaches.
To help you define symptoms and determine the type of headaches that you may be experiencing, as well as conditions that may be causing your symptoms, we have included some additional information below.
Most common types of headaches we treat with chiropractic therapies.
- Tension Headache
- Cluster Headache
- Sinus Headache
- Migraine Headache
- Cervicogenic Headache
Tension Headache
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- The most common type of headache that people suffer from
- A general pain or pressure felt around the head
- The pain often described as a tight band around the head
- Usually caused by muscle tension, stress, poor posture, eye strain
- Can be helped by massage therapy, chiropractic and/or acupuncture
Prevention is the key with lifestyle changes that can help modulate stress and preventative body work done on the muscles and alignment of the neck.
Cluster Headache
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- Pain is usually sharp, sudden and located on one side of the head usually around the eye
- Some describe the pain as “drilling” in nature
- The headaches are usually cyclic or recurring in patterns or “clusters”
- The pain usually lasts from 15 minutes to 3 hours and can occur up to 8X per day
- Watery eyes, runny nose and sinus symptoms are commonly associated with it
- Uncertain of the trigger but may be neuro-immune related
- A clean diet, proper hydration and general exercise may help
Prevention is the best choice here and can be found in the form of chiropractic, nutrition and other forms of body work. As always seeking the root of the cause or finding any causal relationships to head pain is worth the investigation.
Sinus Headache
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- Usually associated with inflammation and/or infection
- Pain is usually over the frontal and maxillary sinus regions “mask of the face”
- Treatment is getting to the root cause of the issue which is usually a chronic underlying infection
Management is the key with this type of headache. If you are a chronic sinus headache sufferer, addressing this proactively is your best solution. This is where chiropractic and nutrition can really produce excellent outcomes. It’s too late once you have the infection and/or headache symptoms. The best treatment is not more antibiotics and/or prednisone and pain medication but smarter solutions to this problem.
Migrane Headache
- Very common
- Can be genetic or runs in families
- Usually seen more in women
- Head pain is usually on one side of the head, usually located around and behind the eye, temporal region of the head and under the base of the skull.
- Head pain lasting between 4-72 hours
- Pain is described as throbbing, severe and debilitating
- Usually interferes with work and/or activities of daily living and in some cases laying down makes the pain worse
- May be associated with nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light and/or sound as well as visual disturbances
- Intensity and frequency can change throughout various phases of life, i.e. when the body goes through hormonal changes (menopause, andropause, pregnancy or aging)
- Can be associated with various triggers including weather changes and foods
Best prevented by chiropractic adjustments to the upper cervical region and pointed nutrition strategies
Cervicogenic Headache
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- Head pain referred from the neck
- Moderate-severe non-throbbing pain
- Usually one sided and seems to radiate from the neck up into the head
- May be associated with tenderness along the neck and/or limited range of motion
- Difficult to distinguish between tension and migraine headache
- Usually associated with aberrant cervical vertebrae and soft tissue structures of the neck (muscles and ligaments)
This is the most common headache that chiropractors see and it responds excellent to chiropractic adjustments
Some Causes of Headaches
- Dehydration
- Spinal vertebrae restrictions
- Muscular tension
- Low blood sugar (skipping meals)
- Insomnia
- Food sensitivities or allergies
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Sex
- Stress
- Obesity
- Caffeine
- MSG
- Alcohol: red wine & beer
- Aged, fermented and/or cured foods: cheese, sauerkraut, dried fruit, deli meat
- Dairy products
- Weather changes
- Underlying medical conditions
Best Headache Proactive Treatments
- Regular chiropractic adjustments
- Massage therapy
- Water
- Exercise
- Clean eating
- Stress management
- If you feel a headache start to come on drink some water immediately as you may be dehydrated and take a nice warm shower, this usually helps.
- If you’re well into a headache a nice remedy is to soak your feet in very warm water and place a cold pack on the back of your neck. Try to relax/meditate and breathe deeply for about 10-15 minutes while doing this.
- Magnesium works very nicely as a general preventative
