Anyone who has ever tried to work, study or sleep with a bad headache knows just how hard it can be to function when your head hurts. If you suffer from regular headaches or migraines, you know that finding an effective treatment can change the quality of your life.
It can be overwhelming to navigate the medical system, visiting many different doctors, trying lots of medications and dealing with fatigue, depression and drug side effects. Chronic pain from headaches and migraines can lead to sleep problems, as well as an emotional toll. So if you’ve tried all the doctors and medications, what else can you do to find relief?
Firstly, you need to find the cause of your pain. You will not be effective in treating your headaches until you find out what is the root problem that is causing them to begin with.
Common Causes of Headaches
There are many causes of headaches, but we can simplify by putting them all into one of three categories: misalignment of the spine, abnormal brain activity and food and chemical sensitivities. Once we know which of these is causing a headache, we can be much more effective in treating it!
Cause: Misalignments and Abnormal Biomechanics
Your neck is attached to your head by a whole array of different muscles. Try to imagine your head as a bowling ball attached to the top of a baseball bat by many rubber bands. If your head and neck shift or move so that the bowling ball isn’t perched perfectly, the muscles in your neck tighten, trying to keep your head in place. It’s as if the rubber bands stretch as far as they can to hold that bowling ball up. This action and stress on the muscles causes tension, and this tension can lead to headaches. This set of complex motions, called biomechanics, can be both the cause and way to find relief for a headache.
Treatment: Restore Normal Motion to the Neck
If your headache is being caused by abnormal biomechanics, the treatment is to restore your head and neck to normal position and function. Once your head and neck are back in alignment, your muscles can relax, allowing your headaches to recede.
Cause: Improper Firing of the Brain’s Pathways
Your brain is a hive of activity, constantly sending electrical messages back and forth to and among brain cells. These messages are what makes your body run. In some cases, however, the neurons in your brain can start to fire irregularly, causing your brain and your nervous system to function incorrectly. If the brain cells, or neurons in your brain that control the feeling in your neck and face aren’t communicating properly, this can cause pain in those areas.
Treatment: Strengthen Your Neural Pathways
We can train your brain to beat pain. Many scientific studies have proven that you can strengthen circuits between some areas of your brain, but also rewriting the “brain map” of how your neurons fire, creating a new, and pain free pathways.
Cause: Food and Chemical Sensitivities
Have you noticed that your headaches are worse if you are exposed to cigarette smoke? If you drink red wine or eat cheese? Maybe the smell of paint or varnish will trigger a headache? This is all due to chemical sensitivities. For some people, the body reacts to certain chemicals and foods as invaders. When the body senses an invader, it will generate inflammation to combat the threat. That inflammation often causes or increases pain.
Treatment: Identify and Remove Pain Triggers
If you haven’t noticed a direct correlation between your headaches and certain food or chemical triggers, then it will take a bit of time to identify which substances are causing your headache pain. It can be done however, and many people have benefitted from a process that helps them find the causes in their diet or environment that are responsible for their headaches.
What Can I Do to Find the Cause of My Headache?
A good step is to visit a practitioner who specializes in the kind of treatments listed above. Pain management clinics and functional neurologists are experts in the kind of detective work needed to help you both identify the cause of your headache and receive an appropriate treatment.
You don’t have to continue to suffer from headaches. Even if you have tried many treatments before, and did not find relief, do not give up hope! Call a practice like the NorCal brain center to see what a team of specialized doctors and therapists can do to help you live your best, pain-free life!
