Headaches affect many people every day and women are affected twice as much as men. Some pain can be managed by altering your activity or position but headaches are constant and impact your ability to be fully present in every aspect of life.
This study evaluated the results of 15 other studies on headaches and came to the conclusion that chiropractic adjustments are effective in reducing headache frequency, intensity, and duration.
Not only is that a tremendous result but what is equally important is that this is a natural alternative to medications that carry significant risk of adverse effects.
THE SOLUTION MUST FIT THE PROBLEM
The human body is amazing in its capacity to heal from injuries and infections, repair damage, and maintain health. Anytime there is a persistent or recurrent problem like headaches it is an indication that something is out of balance in a way that the body is unable to correct for.
Determining what type of imbalance is present is absolutely essential if you want to correct the problem and therefore the headaches.
The medical approach to ‘managing’ headaches is to prescribe pain medication. The proposed solution here is a chemical solution and that would imply there is a chemical imbalance.
While there is a possibility of a chemical imbalance causing headaches, pain medication is never going to restore balance.
The vast majority of migraines, tension headaches, and cervicogenic headaches are a combination of neurological and mechanical in origin. That means that if you want to solve the headache problem you must have a solution that corrects the mechanical and neurological imbalances.
Doesn’t that make sense? There is a saying that is appropriate to healthcare: “When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.”
Medicine’s hammer is drugs and surgery. This narrows the focus of medicine to alleviating symptoms rather than correcting the real problem. And, the problem is never a deficiency of drugs.
HOW DOES CHIROPRACTIC WORK?
As I’ve said, the solution to any health challenge must address the problem causing it. In the case of headaches it is clear that medications do not and cannot correct any imbalance that might be causing the headaches.
Headaches are a combination of mechanical dysfunction, neurological irritation, and vascular responses. The linchpin to this is the alteration of joint function (mechanical dysfunction) in the spine.
When spinal joints lose their ability to move freely it causes a cascade of responses:
- Joint tightness and loss of motion
- Muscle spasm in response to the joint restriction
- Nerve irritation caused by the altered joint motion
- Blood flow alterations (vascular responses) due to nerve irritation
Corrective chiropractic works by first identifying any alterations to ideal spinal function with special attention paid to the cervical spine. In the upper neck the occiput and the top two vertebrae are key. There are very small muscles in the upper neck that spasm when the joints lose motion.
Three pairs of nerves exit the upper neck and travel into the head. When these occipital nerves get “pinched” or irritated they become a source of headaches.
Chiropractic seeks to accomplish 3 primary goals in helping to correct chronic headaches:
- Restore balance to the pelvis and spine so that the hips, shoulders, and head are level.
- Restore alignment to the joints of the pelvis and spine.
- Restore motion to the joints of the pelvis and spine.
By restoring proper spinal function stress is released from the joints and muscles that are causing the headaches. It often takes a couple of months, depending on chronicity, to restore proper function to the spine.
LIFE CHIROPRACTIC GRASS VALLEY
If you are ready to begin your journey to resolving your headaches you can schedule your initial visit to Life Chiropractic here: Schedule Here