Headaches

Everybody has at one point in life suffered from a headache. It presents itself in different ways to different people. Some of the people experiences pain in one part of their head while or behind their eye and others experiences a pounding sensation in their head. The pain may be sharp or dull and may last for few minutes to a few days. Most of the headaches do not have serious causes but for those that have requires medical attention.

Some of the causes of headache include drug reactions, temporomandibular join dysfunction, low blood sugar, high blood pressure and fatigue and tightness in the neck muscles.

Types of headaches

Tension headache

This is the major type of headache that affects the highest percentage of people suffering from headache. The symptoms of this type of headache are a constant dull and achy feeling on one or both sides of the head. These headaches begin slowly and can last for minutes or days. It normally tends s to begin in the middle or at the end of the day. Tension headache often results from stress and bad posture that stresses the spine and upper back and neck. At time the pain can be severe but tension headache is not associated with symptoms such as nausea or vomiting.

The main cause of tension headache is subluxations in the upper back and neck especially the upper neck in combination with trigger points. When the top cervical vertebrae lose their normal position, Rectus capitis posterior minor (RCPM) muscle goes into spasm. Another cause of tension headache is from referred pain from trigger points in the levetaor muscle on the side of neck. This is more common to people who have suffered whiplash injury due to the muscle damage in the neck.

Migraine Headaches

Migraine is intense headache that are associated with nausea and sensitivity to noise or light. It has affected a large number of people in U.S and it is prevalent in women. It can last from few hours to a few days. Migraine headache has a visual symptom known as aura. Migraine headache is hereditary and it first attacks people who are below 30 years old. It has been found that it occurs less frequently and it becomes less severe as people get older.

Migraine headaches are caused by a constriction of the blood vessels in the brain followed by a dilation of blood vessels. During constriction of blood vessels, there is a decrease in blood flow that leads to visual symptoms that people experience.

Cluster headache

Cluster headache occurs for a short duration causing headaches that is felt on one side of the head behind the eyes. It affects about one million people in United States majority of them being men. Cluster headaches are related to a dilation of the blood vessels in the brain causing an increase in pressure.

Research studies have shown that chiropractic adjustments are very effective for treating headaches especially tension headache that originates in the neck. Each individual headache case is different and it requires proper evaluation before the best chiropractic care can be determined.

Headache trigger points

Trigger point therapy for headaches involves four muscles: the splenius, sub occipitals, the sternolcleidomastoid (SCM) and Trapezius muscle.