Headache
Headaches are incredibly annoying. Concentrating is challenging with a thumping feeling in your head. Work and other daily activities suddenly become a lot more difficult and cost more energy.
Often, it can even have an effect on your mood and emotions. Why do you have a headache? That question is sometimes difficult to answer, because headaches can stem from many different factors. Examples are poor sleep, too much caffeine or a cold.
Headache causes
Headaches are caused by fever, colds, drinking too much alcohol, fluctuations in hormone levels, poor vision, wrong glasses, stress or problems with the teeth or jaw. Do you have regular headaches? Then it is wise to find out the cause. By removing the cause, the headache often also goes away.
Some common types of headaches:
Symptoms headaches
Headaches feel different for everyone. One person feels it more like a throbbing pain in the front of the head and the other person as stabbing at the back of the head. Sometimes headaches also cause other complaints such as nausea, vomiting, loss or altered vision, dizziness/light headedness. Headache is a signal from the body that something is wrong. The nerves around your skull, jaw, neck and upper back could be irritated or stimulated, causing you to get a headache. By ignoring or suppressing the pain with painkillers, nothing is solved.
On occasion, the cause of headaches is not serious and can easily be prevented. You can do this yourself:
- Get enough sleep
- Reduce stress
- Have your eyes examined
- Eat healthy
- Drink enough water
- Ensure sufficient exercise
- Try to relax more often
Tension headache / Cervicogenic headaches
Tension headache is one of the most common headaches and occurs in people of all ages. Tension headaches are mainly caused by stress, poor posture or anxiety. This type of headache feels like a dull or pressing pain in the skull skin, temples or neck. It feels like there’s a band around your head. Stiffness in the spine overloads muscles and surrounding nerves become irritated, which can lead to tension headaches.
Tension headaches are usually categorised from muscle referral to the neck and head, where as cervicogenic headaches arise from the vertebrae and joints. In our experience both these headaches overlap together and one will eventually cause the other. Chiropractic can help you quickly get rid of your tension and cervicogenic headaches.
Migraine
Migraine is an attack of severe headaches that can last for hours to days. The headache is usually on one side of the head and is pounding or throbbing. In addition to headaches, people with migraines also regularly experience nausea or vomiting and have hypersensitive to smell, sound and light. Migraine is a disorder in the part of the brain that processes pain. The cooperation between the blood vessels and the nerves in the brain is temporarily disrupted.
Common causes of migraines are hormone fluctuations, certain foods, alcohol and medications. During a migraine attack it is difficult to function properly, the only option is to go to bed and rest. Do you suffer from migraines? In most cases we can help you! Often, one of the triggers of migraines are nerve irritation around the upper neck and skull. A chiropractor can assess and treat this area.
Headache from the jaw (TMD)
Headache from the jaw is characterised as a headache above the eyes and/or on the side of the head/temple region. The irritation of the jaw joint causes a tension and muscle reaction, which puts pressure on the facial nerve or trigeminal nerve and irritates it. This can cause pain in the jaw joint.
Common complaints with TMD are: painful teeth, cracking jaw joints and fatigue of the chewing muscles. Do you suffer from headaches from the jaw? With chiropractic treatments we ensure that the jaw has room to function properly again, so that the headache quickly decreases.
Whiplash headache
Headaches from whiplash are often a type of tension headache caused by overexertion of the muscles and nerves in the neck with injury to the ligaments supporting the neck joints. The neck injury causes you to have a dull and nauseating pain in the head. It can feel like there’s a band around your head.
A common cause of whiplash headaches is from behind a car collision. Another method is from a fall from the stairs or a ball against your head during sport you have a chance of whiplash with a strong headache. Rest is needed to reduce these headache symptoms. Unfortunately, it can happen that the symptoms of a whiplash can occur weeks or even months after an accident due to the body trying to compensate for the trauma. Chiropractic also helps; by bringing your body back into balance in a natural way, you heal faster and your complaints decrease.
Chiropractic for headaches
Remedying headaches is often easier than you think. With chiropractic, we have achieved great results in our clients with headaches. You don’t have to keep walking around with a headache. Together we will look for the cause of your pain. With our gentle, safe techniques, you will quickly get rid of your headaches. From baby to 65+, everyone is welcome. We are happy to help you!