Headaches

There are many causes of headaches including: tension or stress, migraine, eye strain, sinuses or allergies, a drop in blood sugar, increase in blood pressure, dehydration, certain food triggers and hormonal causes. Most headaches are benign and go away on their own. For some people headaches may be fairly common, but headaches are not normal. When you experience a headache it is your body's way of alerting you that something is wrong. Simply covering up the pain of a headache with aspirin, or ibuprofen is ignoring the problem, and if used repeatedly can be harmful to your body.

There is a better way to treat headaches, with chiropractic care. Chiropractic care is a drug free, non-invasive approach to treating headaches. There are many types of headaches; the most common is the "Tension Headache". Tension headaches generally are caused by prolonged contraction of the suboccipital muscles. These muscles are located in the area of your upper back to the base of your skull and vertebrae (bones). Many times there are misalignments in your spine that we call subluxations. These subluxations or misalignments can put pressure on the spinal nerves exiting your spinal column as well. The nerves, especially the nerves in the neck control all functioning and healing in your neck and head. If the vertebrae (bones) of your head and neck are not properly aligned there may be pressure on the nerves causing symptoms such as headaches. It is usually a combination of misalignments and poor posture that causes headaches to arise. Many of us sit for many hours during the day and this constant pressure and stretch on the muscles causes irritation that eventually leads to headaches. This prolonged stretch can cause "trigger points" to develop.

Why come to a chiropractor for a headache? If your vertebrae (bones) are out of position or if the muscles are contracted and "trigger points" have developed, an aspirin or ibuprofen will not fix the problem. They may help ease the headache, but the same problem comes back the next day or the next week because structurally your neck is still the same. We want to get to the cause of your headaches and treat that. We will work to change the alignment, through specific chiropractic adjustments, instruct you on better posture, diet, life style changes, and show you exercises that you can do at home to prevent further misalignments.

We have great success in treating patients with headaches, come and see for yourself!

Migraine Headaches

A classic migraine has an "aura" or warning associated with it that precedes the headache. The aura is often a visual disturbance (like seeing stars or zigzag lines or a temporary blind spot.)

A common migraine does not have such a warning before the head pain begins. Migraines can often be quite debilitating. Migraines tend to affect women more often than men and are more common between the ages of 10-45 years old.

Although the exact cause of migraine is still unknown, there is evidence to suggest that migraine headaches may be triggered by trauma to the head and neck area. The pain may not develop until years later. The standard approach to managing migraines has been drug therapy; drugs, however, do not treat the root cause of the disorder and often have unpleasant side effects.

Chiropractic adjustments can help provide migraine pain relief by alleviating any misalignments in the vertebrae of the upper cervical spine (upper neck) caused by trauma such as auto accidents or sports injuries, as well as poor posture. These misalignments cause irritation to the nerves traveling between the brain and spinal cord and to the blood vessels traveling to the head. Nerve irritation and altered blood flow has been directly associated with migraines. By correcting the vertebrae in the upper neck, normal nerve and blood flow is returned and many patients suffering from migraine headache pain are able to get long term relief from their symptoms.

Specific x-rays of the cervical region are taken to locate a vertebral misalignment. If a misalignment has been found to affect the function of the nervous system, very specific gentle adjustments are made, to correct the misaligned vertebrae in the neck and fix the cause of the problem. By getting to the cause this will eliminate the need for unnecessary drugs, shots, and medications.