Headaches are not normal and many can be helped by chiropractic care!
Headaches: Big ones, small ones, migraines; oh my. If you have had these for any amount of time you know how debilitating they can be, especially migraines. We speak to a lot of people who have had headaches so long that they are just part of the routine. Most people grin and bare it or take over the counter medication for theme. We are told many times that these headaches are just “normal.” They are not normal. There is nothing normal about pain. You may have had it for a while but headaches are a pretty powerful indication that there is damage and dysfunction in the body.
There are many causes of headaches, but large percentage of the time we find the source of the headache in poor spinal alignment and motion, particularly in the upper part of the neck just below the head. This is because there are so many muscles attached to this region and nerves going to and from the brain. The muscles facilitate the diverse movement capabilities of the head and when they become over-burdened and inflamed, a headache can result. On the other hand there are a tremendous amount of nerves to facilitate function of various structures not only in the head, but the rest of the body too. There isn’t a one-to-one sort of science where there an actual headache nerve, but mis-aligning your spine and putting any amount of tension or pressure on these nerves can cause headaches at the base of your neck, on top of your head, your temples or anywhere else. An additional concept to understand here is that the top two vertebrae of your spine do something that no other vertebrae do. They attach directly to the spinal cord with tiny ligaments. Imagine having a mis-aligment in one of those vertebra and having a continuous pull on your spinal cord. I imagine that would cause some issues since even the weight of a dime has shown to decease the function of a nerve by up to 60%. A headache is a pretty good indication that you should be evaluated for proper spinal alignment and nerve function.
Some may say, “Wait a minute, I get migraines or headaches when the weather changes.” Current understanding is that many migraines are vascular in nature. This means that the blood flow in and out of the brain is the reason you get the migraine. This becomes a problem for many with barometric pressure shift because your body has to change its internal pressures to deal with this. When it can’t handle the change from dysfunction, the result may be a migraine. So what does this have to do with your spine and nerves? Your blood vessels have tiny muscles around them that can constrict to make them smaller. They have a nerve supply when they nerves are not communicating what the brain is saying because of interference in the spine, you get dysfunction in the blood supply.
Headaches and misalignments in this region are no laughing matter. They can really interfere with life and wellbeing. They need to be properly diagnosed by a professional and cared for. For certain any headache is one too many.
