Headaches and Chiropractic

Headaches have long been one of my favorite conditions to treat. Why? Because those who suffer from them know that headaches are one of the most painful, debilitating and depressing medical complaints. They can ruin your day and rule your life. Fortunately, they can be treated very effectively with chiropractic therapy.

Many people who have frequent headaches have, at some point, sought help with a neurologist. While neurologists can sometimes help with headaches, their usual treatment protocol is drug therapy. The problem with drugs is that they only treat the symptom: pain. They do nothing to treat the underlying cause of headaches. So, while the headaches may improve to a degree, they rarely go away completely with medication.

A chiropractor treats headaches by addressing the underlying cause of the pain: neuromuscular dysfunction in the neck and surrounding tissues.

There are different types of common headaches:

• Tension headache
• Migraine headache
• Cluster headache

While each type of headache can have different underlying causes, they present similarly, and they all respond well to chiropractic care.

Dr. Laura Pate became a chiropractor because of headaches. In her 20s she suffered from frequent migraines. She went to various neurologists and tried the various medications. But the migraines always returned. Finally, with nowhere else to turn, she went to a chiropractic physician. Within a few weeks, her headaches were gone completely.

In practice, I have successfully treated numerous headache patients. One that stands out was a gentleman who said he had the same headache for 20 years. He had been to various neurologists and tried various medications. He said he would get some, short-lived improvement, but the headache never really went away, and it would always come back just as intense after a time. The medical response was to just keep increasing his meds in an ongoing cycle.

Finally, he began treatment at my clinic. Within four weeks, he was headache-free for the first time in 20 years. He eventually moved for work, and I didn’t see him for about two years. He returned when he started getting headaches again. He said during the interim, he had not had a headache for more than a year-and-a-half. After a short treatment cycle, he was once again living without headaches.

Headaches can have many causes, and depending upon the headache history, it is important to rule-out more serious pathologies through diagnostic imaging. However, most headaches are idiopathic, meaning there is no obvious cause even after imaging has been done. A good chiropractic physician can identify pain generating tissues, treat neuromuscular dysfunction, and can cure headaches once and for all.

Author

Joseph Pate, D.C. Doctor of Chiropractic