Every day, millions of people suffer from headaches. They can range in type, causes, and severity, but all headaches affect your quality of life and impact your ability to think clearly and enjoy your day-to-day activities. There are many different treatments out there that people seek out in order to alleviate their pain, including the various ways chiropractors help with headaches. Here is what you need to know about the different types of headaches and how chiropractors help with headaches.
Types Of Headaches
Headaches can be caused by many different conditions and factors, and range in frequency and severity. Most people only have the occasional headache here and there, but some experience excruciating migraines or cluster headaches. How chiropractors help with headaches will depend on your type of headache. They’ll always seek to assess and diagnose your type of headache and any triggers in order to determine the proper treatment method for you.
There are three common types of headaches: tension headaches, cluster headaches, and migraines.
- Tension headaches are the most common type of headaches. They’re usually mild to moderate in pain, and aren’t typically considered dangerous by medical professionals. Tension headaches can be either episodic or chronic. They’re episodic if you get them less than 15 days out of the month and chronic if you have them more days than you don’t.
- Cluster headaches are rare, but cause extreme pain. They occur in clusters, with each headache lasting 1-3 hours. Their frequency can range from several times a day to every other day, followed by remissions that can last months or years. While not life-threatening, they’re excruciatingly painful.
- Migraines cause pulsing sensations or throbbing pain that can be severe, usually accompanied by sensitivity to light and sound and nausea and vomiting. Some people experience auras prior to an attack. Migraines can last anywhere from hours to days at a time.
Causes Of Headaches
There are many different potential causes for headaches. When chiropractors help with headaches, they will always ask you questions about any potential triggers you may have noticed that could have caused the headache. Headaches can be caused by many factors, from your genetics to the foods you eat to muscle tension to a spine out of alignment and more.
In order to ensure chiropractors help with headaches in a way that is beneficial to you, they will always try to find the underlying cause to ensure effective pain management and relief. Some common causes of headaches include:
- Muscle tension
- Stress
- Hormonal changes
- Poor posture
- Staring at screens for long periods of time
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Smoking
- Dehydration
- Alcohol
- Fatigue
- Eye strain
- And many more
How Can Chiropractors Help With Headaches?
The problem many doctors, both medical and chiropractic alike, see with headaches, is that they can cause an increasing dependency on painkillers that get less effective as your body gets used to them, making you need more and more in order to find relief. Unfortunately, trying to relieve headaches can often result in even more headaches due to medication overuse.
This is why it’s so important to understand the cause of your headaches so that you can treat the root cause and avoid potentially making them worse rather than helping them. Chiropractors help with headaches in just that way. When you seek out chiropractors’ help with headaches, they’ll ask about the frequency, severity, and duration of your headaches, and whether anything seems to cause them.
Chiropractors help with headaches by coming up with a treatment plan customized to you and your needs. This can include anything from dietary adjustments to spinal manipulations to chiropractic massage and more. While there’s nothing wrong with painkillers here and there, you don’t want to end up with painkillers worsening your headaches rather than helping them.
Chiropractors help with headaches through providing natural treatment methods that are designed to target the root problem in order to find lasting relief and pain management. For example, if your spine is out of alignment, this limits your neck’s range of motion and can cause problems with your nerves, muscles, and blood supply, which can lead to headaches. By realigning your spine, these problems are resolved and your headaches can be alleviated.
Do You Need Our Chiropractors’ Help With Headaches?
Elevate Wellness offers chiropractic treatments for headaches. We use manual therapy, soft tissue therapy, education about lifestyle changes, and more in order to provide you with lasting relief. Contact us today to schedule a consultation and let us help you find your way to a pain-free life!