Reducing Headache Frequency With Chiropractic
Patient History: A Shoreview, MN woman in her 50s presented to our clinic with a history of headaches. She explained that she has headaches approximately 20 days/month for over 20 years. She has tried medication, acupuncture, and massage with some limited success.
Symptoms: The headaches start later in the afternoon and continue through the evening. Sleep does help once she is able to fall asleep with the pain. The headache pain starts at the base of her skull and wraps around to her temples and above her eyes. The pain level average for her headaches was a 5-7/10 on the pain scale. She says she has learned to live with the pain, but would love to have some headache relief.
Findings: After a thorough examination, we found she had significant muscle tension not only in her neck muscles, but also the supporting muscles of her shoulders and upper back. She had chiropractic subluxations (spinal misalignment) in her cervical and thoracic spine that was causing joint and nerve irritation. The 3 upper Cervical (Neck) spinal segments share nerve tracts with the cranium. The pain from these spinal segments can be misinterpreted and felt by the head or brain as being located in the head.
Treatment: We performed chiropractic adjustments (spinal manipulation) to remove the subluxations, ultrasound to reduce the muscle tightness, provided nutritional advice, offered advice on posture, ergonomics, and ways to reduce stress. All of this helped to improve the spinal function, alleviate the stree of the muscles and nerves, and reduce the headache intensity and frequency.
Results: After 8 visits over a 3 week period, the patient reported that she had gone 5 days without a headache. We continued treatment and was able to reduce her headache freqency to only 3-4 times per month from 20/month, and the average intensity of her headaches was reduced to 2-3/10 on a pain scale.
Dr Douglas Yost