Headaches

There are many causes and triggers to headaches that have been discovered. What many individuals do not know, is that headaches often originate from the neck and create what is called a referral pattern of pain. Similar to neck pain having many variables and causes, headaches are just as complicated. Researchers have identified over 300 causes for headaches. Various pain-sensitive structures and tissues including the skin, fascia, muscles, arteries, vertebrae and the upper cervical nerves produce headaches when irritated or injured. Fortunately, only a handful of causes are responsible for the majority of headaches.

The most common of these headaches include:

1. Cervicogenic- problems within the neck creating headache symptoms
2. Muscle-tension- neck and upper back muscular spasms, often
3. located in the back of the skull.
4. Post-traumatic- following head/neck trauma, i.e. whiplash
5. Drug-induced- from analgesic overuse
6. Migraines- with visual changes or sensitivity to light
7. Cluster- brief extreme intense pain

Doctors of chiropractic successfully help individual's obtain safe, effective, long-term relief from their headaches. This is because most headaches have a spinal, muscular, or habitual component which the chiropractor has been trained to identify and treat.

Spinal manipulation for 2 months vs placebo treatment for migraines found: 22% of people had a 90% reduction of their migraines and ~50% more reported significant improvement!

_{J Man phy ther Feb 2000;23(2)}