Geneva Chiropractor Discusses Headaches: It's Not in Your Head But Your Neck! Part One of Two

Geneva Chiropractor Discusses Headaches: It's Not in Your Head But Your Neck! Part One of Two

For 20 years now when I do a new patient interview, I still hear from patients, " I just get normal headaches". When I ask what they mean I usually hear something like this "you know pain in the head 2-3 times per week, I take some advil and it often goes away." I've had them for years. I am still flabergasted when I hear this. Headaches are not normal and come in all types of shapes and sizes from Migraines, tension, cluster, to rebound. Often times I have patients that have seen 4 or 5 different doctors and might have been through 10 different medications only to be told it's all in your head. Yes, that is right, sometimes when doctors can't find the cause of the patients head pain they assume it is all in their head or pysochosomatic.

Well, I am here to tell you that a good portion of headaches, especially tension and Migraine have their origin in the neck. To understand this I have to give you a bit of an anatomy lesson. You see, the bones of your neck protect the spinal cord and nerves that exit between them. The cervical cord carries messages from the brain to the body through these nerves, mostly to areas of the head, face, neck and upper extremities, but also to internal organs like the ears, ears, nose and heart. In fact, these nerves besides connecting to the muscles in these areas also innervate the blood vessels that travel into the head. This innervation controls the size and shape of the blood vessels which determines how much blood is arriving into the head.

With Migraine headaches the patient often has an aura phase to the headache which involves a constriction or narrowing of the blood vessels. Then, there is a sudden dilation or opening allowing all that blood to rush into the head resulting in a pounding headache often behind one eye. This narrowing and rapid opening of the blood vessels is controlled by nerves. Oftentimes the cervical nerves are irritated or pinched from a bone in your neck being out of place(this is called a subluxation). Then a subtle trigger like wine, cheese, chocolate or stress can be the initiator of a cycle that causes more irritation to the nerves resulting in a headache.

In tension headaches or cervicogenic headaches, the pinched nerves in the neck cause a tightening of the neck, head and trapezius muscles. This excess tension decreases blood flow and results in neck or head pain as well as tension. In addition to increasing muscle tension from pinched nerves, subluxations can alter the posture or head position and neck curve. In many instances, patients with headaches have a reversed cervical curve with or without a forward head carriage. Because the head is meant to sit over the shoulders, this forward head carriage causes the muscles of the neck to have to hold up your head all day long. Just like if you tried doing a bicep curl exercise all day your biceps would get very sore, the same thing` happens to the muscles of the neck. In many instances these tight muscles, because they connect to the head, result in a tension headache. Taking medications may help ease the pain but they don't do anything to improve the subluxation (bone out of place pinching on the nerves). In fact, oftentimes people end up taking so much over the counter medication to get rid of their head pain they end up getting another type of headache called the Rebound Headache.

Rebound Headaches result from the wearing off phase of the over the counter or prescription medications people are chronically taking for their headaches. It is a classic example of what covering up a symptom rather than treating the cause of the problem can do to a person. Trying to find the source of the head pain in the first place would help to prevent these types of headaches.

So, if you are a sufferer of headaches, meaning you have 2 or more headaches a month, you may have a problem in your neck. It is very possible that problem is a subluxation causing disrupted nerve or blood flow to the muscles of the neck and head resulting in your head pain. Keep in mind this can occur even if there is no neck pain. An evaluation by a chiropractor could tell you if the cause of your headaches was coming from a neck subluxation.

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