What Puts The Ache In Headache?
The "ache" in headache does not come from your brain; your brain cannot feel pain. During brain surgery, a patient is often wide awake feeling nothing, even talking to the surgeons and nurses while his/her brain is being operated on. So what puts the "ache" in headache? It's the non-brain structures: blood vessels, membranes and cranial nerves in the brain and skull. When these structures are stretched, compressed, irritated, inflamed or infected, headaches often result.
The Chiropractic Approach
Why do headache sufferers turn to the natural, drug-free chiropractic approach to health? That's because chiropractic has a unique healing approach; chiropractors are the only health profession trained to analyze your body for a serious and often ignored condition that can damage your nerves, cause tissue inflammation, cause muscles to tighten and knot, weaken your body, cause fatigue and set the stage for sickness and disease. This condition is called the subluxation. Just as you may have a cavity in your tooth and be unaware of the damage it's causing, so the subluxation may be causing serious harm to your body, sometimes for years, without your knowledge. What exactly is a subluxation? It is a tiny distortion or misalignment in your spine and structural system that stresses your nervous system. What causes subluxations? Any physical or emotional stress that your body cannot withstand can cause your spine and structural system to develop a subluxation.
Why Does Chiropractic Work So Well?
Why has chiropractic been a blessing to millions of headache sufferers? The reason may be that most headache sufferers appear to be carrying around subluxations in their bodies. According to Dr. Sam Chong, Consultant Neurologist at Kings College Hospital: "It is well recognised that post traumatic headache (PTH) is a common symptom after injuries to the head or neck... Trauma can exacerbate a pre-existing headache condition or it can bring on a headache in someone who has never experienced this before". In a British study of 1,090 consecutive new patients from the office of 83 chiropractors, the benefits of chiropractic were observed for headaches and neck pain. Chiropractic patients reported "a high level of patient satisfaction" with their care.
How Long Will It Take?
It depends. Some patients report dramatic relief after just one adjustment. Others may take months of care to finally resolve them. Everyone is different in how they respond to care. An analysis of 47 studies of chiropractic for headaches, neck pain and upper back pain revealed that it took (on average) 7.7 visits to see a 46.5% improvement in these conditions and 17 visits to completely resolve them. Many studies and clinical reports repeatedly reveal that anyone suffering from headaches should seek out chiropractic care.
How Does Chiropractic Affect Headaches?
For many years it has been said that DC after a Doctor of Chiropractic's name also stands for "Doctor of Cause", chiropractors correct the cause of a patients health problems, rather than given painkillers and other drugs which only treat the symptoms or suppress the disease symptoms and drive them deeper. A team of surgeons may have found one of the answers as to why chiropractic works so well. They discovered a small neck muscle that connects to brain membranes. When the neck is out of alignment, this muscle can actually pull on the brain! As the lead surgeon writes: "An increasing body of literature relates headaches to pathology affecting the cervical spine and a number of clinical trials have demonstrated that chiropractic is...valuable for managing headache".
Not A Headache Therapy
Anyone suffering from headaches (or any other condition) should make sure they are free from subluxations, for the health of their whole body, not just certain parts. If you have suffered from or are currently suffering from headaches, please come see one of our doctors at Alliance Chiropractic. Call us Today at (317) 482-7780!
