Hi everyone

Today I wanted to talk about headaches. It is not uncommon for people to come to the clinic and tell me that they have headaches everyday and live with it. Most of them simply take medication or have tried different things and nothing seems to help. For many having a headache is a normal part of their life. Why I love chiropractic is that I have had many cases, it will change their life. They will go from having a headache everyday to hardly any and they are able to reduce all the medication that they take. But why?

I describe to my patients that there are different types of headaches. The one type that we can help is called cervicogenic headache. These types of headaches are so common and misdiagnosed. They are linked to tensions in the neck, jaw and face. The lack of motion of vertebras in the neck will create muscles tensions all around the neck, jaw and face. These headaches usually cause pain on both side of the head and start from the back and go in the front. It usually comes at the end of the day. Our goal as a chiropractor is to increase and restore proper mechanics in your neck to then allow all the tension in the muscles to release. So the frequency of the headaches diminishes dramatically. Obviously if you are allergic to read wine or cheese or you headache is linked to your cycle, we will not be able to help with these ones. The thing to remember is that many headaches are linked to the neck. Don’t just blame stress! Stress causes muscle tension and the cycle starts up again….

So my patient had headaches everyday. He is a representative for a company and therefore drives a lot. He had al ot of pain in his neck. The headaches would go up from the neck to the head. He used to take many advil per week. So after a full examination, I diagnosed cervicogenic headache. Now after treating his upper back and neck for 6 visits his headaches have disappeared. He had not had headache in over 2 weeks and feels that even if he drives a lot for work he is not as tight in the shoulder area.

Imagine the life changing event that just happened. You go from having a headache everyday to almost none!!!

Valerie