Headaches 101

Headaches are very common, just ask the person next to you if they've had a headache in the last 30 days. The thing is, headaches while common, are not normal. They are a warning sign that something is wrong in the body.

The most common type of headaches (roughly 75% of all headaches) are tension headaches. These are caused by tense bands of muscles in the neck and scalp. The base of the skull can be very problematic. There are a series of three very small muscles that make a triangle between the skull, the side of your top neck bone (vertebra) and the rearmost part of the second vertebra. This little suboccipital triangle is less than an inch on any side, and the open central part is even smaller.

One of the nerves that caries touch and sensation information from the side of your scalp goes right through the small central part of the suboccipital triangle of muscles. When stress, injuries, or improper joint function make those muscles tense up, they squeeze down on that nerve and interfere with it's function. Your brain interprets this as a problem and lets you know the only way it can - with pain.

Since the path of the nerve goes from the base of the skull, up and over the ear and near the eye, the pathway the headache seems to take will follow this same course.

Aspirin and other over-the-counter meds will kill the pain, but will do nothing for the original problem. Massage helps for a short time in getting the muscles to relax. But - if the joints are restricted, those muscles will flare up again, sometimes within hours triggering another headache. Chiropractic care helps with the joint function, but unless the muscles are worked on at the same time, they will pull the joints right back out of function.

The best results in tension headache treatment come from utilizing both chiropractic and muscle work together.