Headaches & Migraines Specialist
If you struggle with headaches and migraines, it’s impossible for you to enjoy your best quality of life. These ailments can be highly disruptive, making it difficult to focus on work, enjoy hobbies, or even perform basic everyday tasks. We at Central Park West Wellness can often improve headaches and migraines with chiropractic care. To make an appointment, please call our office or schedule your consultation online.
Headaches & Migraines Q & A
Central Park West Wellness
What types of headaches can patients experience?
Headaches can appear in several forms, including tension headaches, cluster headaches, migraines, and headaches related to imbalances or alignment issues in your neck. In some cases, you may also have a headache because of blood sugar issues, toxicity, or emotional stress. Rarely, headaches are a sign of a more serious condition.
Why do headaches occur?
If you experience recurring headaches, they may be related to pressure on the roots of the nerves at the base of your skull and/or in your neck. These nerves are responsible for regulating the flow of blood to your brain, as well as the activity of your neck and head muscles.
Can chiropractic care help with headaches?
In conventional medicine, doctors often prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs, blood vessel dilators or constrictors, or pain relievers to help relieve the symptoms of headaches. However, if headaches continue to recur, these treatments amount to “cutting the wires to the fire alarm without putting out the fire.”
When you have a headache, your body is sending a pain signal to let you know something isn’t right. Chiropractic care looks for the source of this signal and seeks to correct it. Not only will this relieve your pain, but you’ll also enjoy better overall function in your neck and head.
How do chiropractors approach headache treatment?
At Central Park West Wellness, the chiropractors begin by looking to see if your headaches could be related to a displacement of the vertebrae in your neck, which may affect the blood supply to your brain or other tissues in the area. Based on the results of this analysis, your chiropractor may recommend specific procedures to improve the alignment in these areas. You’ll also find out what you can do on your own to deal with any weaknesses or biomechanical imbalances that contribute to your headaches.
The goal of headache and migraine treatment isn’t just to relieve your pain, but also to help you deal with the problems that caused the pain in the first place so you won’t have to keep coming back to the clinic for treatment.
Headaches
Headaches can come in a variety of forms, including a migraine, cluster or those related to tension and imbalances in the neck. They also may be the result of physical or emotional stress, toxicity or blood sugar issues. In rare cases, they can be a sign of a more serious condition. Often, recurring headaches are related to pressure on the roots of the nerves in the neck and/or at the base of the skull, …nerves that help in regulating neck and head muscles, as well as some of the flow of blood to the brain. Typically, various forms of pain relievers, blood vessel dilators or constrictors, and anti-inflammatory drugs are used to relieve the pain. However, if the headaches continue to recur, it’s important to locate their cause and correct it. Otherwise, we are merely figuratively “cutting the wires to the fire alarm, without putting out the fire.” Clearly, the body, via its pain signal is attempting to let us know that something is amiss. At Central Park West Wellness, we look to see if the displacement of neck vertebrae is a factor affecting the nerves related to some of the brain’s blood supply or the blood supply to other tissues in the head or neck. We then discern the correct procedures to align these areas and teach our patients what they themselves should do to correct any related biomechanical imbalances/weaknesses of the spine that are associated with causing the headaches, so they can correct the cause of these headaches themselves.