Physiotherapy Can Help You Head Away From Chronic Headaches
The term “sick headache” might have been coined to describe exactly how you feel today — and every day. A one-off headache encounter can be distressing enough, but frequent or constant headache pain can completely disable you. Many of these headaches have underlying musculoskeletal or biochemical causes — which means that they can be corrected through the right forms of treatment. Consequently, physiotherapy turns out to be just what the doctor ordered for a chronic headache.
Anatomy of a Headache: Understanding the Underlying Causes
What is a headache, beyond the simple definition of a pain in the head? There are several categories of headaches, each with its distinct causes and symptoms.
For most sufferers, a chronic headache means a tension headache. A tension headache can be triggered or aggravated by emotional tension, but the actual mechanism involves physical tension in the muscles of the neck. Tight or strained neck muscles can go into spasms. When spasms overtake certain tiny muscles near the base of the skull, the resulting tugging action irritates a membrane called the dura mater. The dura mater then responds by flooding your head with a vaguely pounding or aching sensation.
Weak or underdeveloped neck muscles may be naturally vulnerable to tightness and spasms. Accident injuries (including whiplash) can push the skull off-center about the neck, subjecting the neck muscles to abnormal stresses. (A headache that specifically involves the upper cervical spine is termed a cervinogenic headache.) Additionally, routine postural problems can cause neck strain and tension headaches. For instance, if you stare down at your smartphone for hours each day, you can develop a painful problem known as “text neck” which also promotes headaches.
Other kinds of headaches, while less common, can prove even more debilitating. A cluster headache is a prime example. These intense headaches strike one side of your face in clusters of attacks. Cervical spinal abnormalities trigger these headaches.
Migraines are even more notorious for causing nausea, light/sound sensitivity, faintness, and vision problems on top of brutal headaches. Migraines sometimes occur as a complication of concussions. Lights, sounds, and food trigger migraines.
How Our Physiotherapist Can Reduce Your Discomfort
Our physiotherapist can help you get to the bottom of your headache problem. If your headache is cervinogenic in nature, we may need to work on your neck. For instance:
- Exercises that strengthen and loosen your neck muscles can also help to ease the stresses that set off your headaches.
- Chiropractic adjustment can correct skeletal misalignment issues that place your neck muscles under unnatural strain. These adjustments can also help to reduce cluster headache attacks.
- Laser therapy and massage therapy can both relax tight neck tissues and speed the recovery of injured muscles.
- Corrective exercises and postural/ergonomic changes can help you steer clear of “text neck” and other occupational headache triggers.
- If your migraines are the result of a recent concussion, a carefully-administered course of physiotherapy can help you recuperate from that concussion more quickly.
- Our physiotherapist can also help you identify other migraine triggers and suggest strategies for avoiding them in your everyday life.
Ready to Overcome Headache Pain? Give Physiotherapy a Try
You’re not doomed to go through life plagued by frequent headaches. If you’re ready to free yourself from this burden, give physiotherapy a try. Contact our physiotherapist today to learn more about our headache treatment options!
Source:
- https://headaches.org/2016/10/11/physical-therapy-headache/
- http://www.apta.org/ptinmotion/2017/3/feature/beyondrest/
- https://johnsonptco.com/how-physical-therapy-can-put-an-end-to-nagging-headaches/
- https://www.patientcareonline.com/depression/tension-and-cervicogenic-headaches
- https://www.webmd.com/migraines-headaches/migraines-headaches-migraines
