Can chiropractic care help with headaches?

It’s a nagging, aching feeling that either keeps you in bed all day or distracts you. Thoughts, traumas, or toxins can cause a headache, but sometimes it’s challenging to identify the source. We often turn to pain relievers for temporary relief from headaches, but did you know that chiropractic care is a natural method that also gets to the cause of the problem?

Chiropractic care is the method Dr. Faith has used to cure her headaches for years. 

Chiropractic care can eliminate tension, sinus, migraines, cluster, and hormone headaches. 

When you visit Simply Well Chiropractic with a headache, Dr. Faith will perform a spinal manipulation, or “adjustment,” to realign the vertebrae in your neck and spine. Chiropractic care helps to alleviate stress on the nervous system, allowing your body to function more normally and reducing the risk of pressure and tension building. 

Tension Headaches

Tension headaches affect about 30-80 percent of the adult population in the United States. These headaches occur when the neck and scalp muscles become tense or contract. Stress and bad posture often cause tension headaches. 

According to research, a chiropractor’s precise manual adjustments can effectively relieve tension headaches, particularly those that appear to originate in the neck. A report by researchers at the Duke University Evidence-Based Practice Center in Durham, N.C., found that “spinal manipulation resulted in almost immediate improvement for those headaches that originate in the neck, and had significantly fewer side effects and longer-lasting relief of tension-type headache than commonly prescribed medications.”

Sinus Headaches

Sinus congestion and inflammation can cause sinus headaches. As Dr. Faith adjusts your neck, it relieves tension on the brain stem, and the throat relaxes. When your throat relaxes, the sinus passages in your head may drain, which helps you feel better more quickly and without needing medications.

Migraines

A study published by The Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics in 2000 found that participants who received chiropractic treatment for migraines improved their frequency, duration, disability, and medication use. 

In contrast to a typical headache, the expansion rather than contraction of blood vessels in the head, which can result in swollen tissue around the brain that can become extremely painful, causes migraines. Chiropractic care helps to restore proper nervous system communication by ensuring alignment, reducing muscle tension, restoring blood flow, decreasing irritation in the nerves, and strengthening muscles. This can lead to relief from migraine pain or, in some cases, a reduction in the amount of migraines one might experience. Dr. Faith can also help identify migraine triggers. 

Cluster headaches

Cluster headaches are rare. It is one-sided head pain that may involve tearing of the eyes, a droopy eyelid, and a stuffy nose. The hallmarks of cluster headaches frequently include a panicked impulse to pace, sit, or rock back and forth. Migraine-like symptoms, such as light and sound sensitivity, may also occur.

The exact cause of cluster headaches is unknown, but you should seek medical help to determine a diagnosis. Your doctor will inquire about your symptoms, and the severity and frequency of your headaches and is likely to perform a neurological examination to test your nerves, senses, and reflexes to make a diagnosis. Imaging tests like a CT scan or MRI may also be advised for cases that are more severe or atypical. 

Like many other ailments, chiropractic care can be an effective treatment method as part of a larger healthcare team. Although there is no known cure for cluster headaches, chiropractic treatment that is individualized for your body’s structure, how it works, and how it heals will be more effective in delivering long-lasting relief. Treatment for cluster headaches focuses on the higher cervical joints, also called the “upper neck.” After a chiropractic adjustment has restored joint motion, your nervous system can unwind and perform much more effectively.

Hormone Headache

Every month, a woman may experience a menstrual migraine (a hormone headache), which begins before or during her period. A dull throbbing or intense pulsating headache, light sensitivity, nausea, exhaustion, dizziness, and other symptoms are typical. 

Like every other headache, chiropractic care realigns the spine to improve spinal function and alleviate stress on the nervous system. By allowing the nervous system to operate as it should, the endocrine system responsible for producing and regulating hormones can also work as it should. This can help address hormonal imbalances, which may lead to additional stress on the body, leading to headaches. 

Dr. Faith loves chiropractic care for her headache pain because she doesn’t have to rely on drugs to find relief. It’s not unusual to hear her say, “I have a headache; I need to get adjusted.” It’s also not uncommon to hear her say, “I feel so much better,” after an adjustment. 

If you’re in the Cincinnati area and ready to try chiropractic care for your headaches, call (513) 271-1233 or visit simplywellchiro.com to schedule an appointment.