Headaches are very common in today’s world and many people at once or another. Many people only Headaches respond well with the chiropractic care. Experience pain in a part of the head or behind their eyes, a lot of people experience a pounding sensation inside their whole head, plus some people even experience nausea, while some don’t. The pain itself can be dull or sharp and may continue for between a few minutes to a couple of days. Fortunately, few headaches have serious underlying causes, but those that do require urgent medical treatment.
Headaches can be due to a wide range of causes, like drug reactions, temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ), tightness on the neck muscles, low blood sugar, high blood pressure, stress and fatigue, the majority of recurrent headaches are of 2 kinds: tension headaches (also called cervicogenic headaches) and migraine headaches. There’s a third, less common, kind of headaches known as the cluster headache that’s a cousin to the migraine. Let’s start out through a look at these three types of headaches.
Cluster Headaches
These type of HAs are very short in duration, excruciating headaches, usually felt somewhere of the head behind the eyes. Cluster headaches affect about One million people in the U.S. and, unlike migraines, are more common in men. This is the only type of headache that tends to occur during the night. The reason that they are called “cluster” headaches is because they usually occur 1 to 4 times per day during a period of a few days. After one cluster of headaches ends, it might be months or even years, before they occur again. Like migraines, cluster headaches are likely to be associated with a dilation on the bloodstream inside the brain, causing a localized rise in pressure.
Tension Headaches
Tension HAs are the most common, affecting upwards of 75% of all headache sufferers. Many people describe a tension headache as the constant dull, achy feeling either on one side or each side of your head, often described as a feeling of a tight band or dull ache around the head or behind the eyes. These headaches usually begin gradually and can continue for minutes or days, and tend to begin in the center or toward the end of the time. Tension headaches are usually the result of stress or bad posture, which stresses the spine and muscles in the upper back and neck.
Tension headaches, also known as stress headaches, might last from Half an hour to many days. In some instances, chronic tension headaches may persist for several months. Although the pain can sometimes be severe, tension headaches are not associated with other symptoms, such as nausea, throbbing or vomiting.
The most common cause of tension headaches is subluxations on the shoulders and neck, particularly the upper neck, usually along with active trigger points. If the top cervical vertebrae lose their normal motion or position, a tiny muscle known as the rectus capitis posterior minor (RCPM) muscle goes into spasm. The problem is that this small muscle includes a tendon which slips between your upper neck and also the lower skull and attaches to the thin pain-sensitive tissue known as the dura mater that covers the brain. Even though the brain itself has no feeling, the dura mater is really pain-sensitive. Consequently, if the RCPM muscle enters into spasm and its tendon tugs on the dura mater, a headache occurs. People who hold desk jobs will usually experience headaches because of this.
Another cause for tension type headaches originates from referred pain from trigger points on the Sternocleidomastoid (SCM) or levator muscle on the side of the neck. These are much more common in those who suffer a whiplash injury due to muscle damage in the neck region.
A lot of those who are suffering from migraines experience visual symptoms called an “aura” before a panic attack which is often called seeing flashing lights.
Migraine Headaches
Every year, about 25 million people in the U.S. experience migraine headaches, and around 75% are women. Migraines are intense and throbbing headaches which are often associated with nausea and sensitivity to light or noise. They could last from as little as a few hours to as much as a few days. Many of those who suffer from migraines experience visual symptoms called an “aura” before an attack that is often known as seeing flashing lights or that everything takes on a dream-like appearance.
Migraine sufferers usually have their first attack before age 30 and they also usually run in families, supporting the concept there’s a genetic aspect of them. Some people have attacks many times a month; others have less than one annually. Many people discover that migraine attacks occur less often and be less severe as they get older.
Migraine headaches develop from a constriction of blood vessels within the brain, then a dilation of blood vessels. During the constriction of the blood vessels there is a reduction in the flow of blood, which is what results in the visual symptoms that a lot of people experience. Even those who don’t go through the classic migraine aura, many of them can tell that an attack is immanent. If the bloodstream dilate, there’s a rapid rise in blood pressure levels in the head. This is the increased pressure that leads for the pounding headache. Every time the heart beats it sends another shock wave through the carotid arteries in the neck up to the brain.
There are lots of theories about why the blood vessels constrict from the start, but nobody knows it for sure. What we know is always that there are a number of things which can trigger migraines, like lack of sleep, stress, flickering lights, strong odors, changing weather patterns and several foods; especially foods that are full in an amino acid called “tyamine”. You can reduce the prospect of migraine headaches if you make some lifestyle changes.
Chiropractic Care for Headaches
Get rid of your headaches today with chiropractic care
Numerous scientific studies show that chiropractic adjustments are very effective for the treatment of tension headaches, especially headaches that originate on the neck.
A study released in 2001 by researchers at the Duke University Evidence-Based Practice Center in Durham, NC, discovered that “spinal manipulation lead to almost immediate improvement for all those headaches that originate in the neck, and had significantly fewer negative effects and longer-lasting relief of tension-type headache than commonly prescribed medications.” These findings support an earlier study published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics that found spinal manipulative therapy to be really effective for the treatment of tension headaches. This research also found out that those who stopped chiropractic treatment after four weeks continued to experience a sustained benefit contrary to those patients who received pain medication.
Everyone’s case is different and needs a complete evaluation before a suitable span of chiropractic care can be established. However, in cases of tension headaches, significant improvement is accomplished through manipulation on the upper two cervical vertebrae, joined with alterations in the junction between your cervical and thoracic spine. This is also useful in most cases of migraine headaches, if food and lifestyle triggers are avoided as well.