Scrambled eggs, bacon and awesome whole fruit is a great start to the morning.  Better yet, eating a good breakfast after a good workout.  You started your day great, but half way through the day you have to pull out of work due to a migraine headache that slowly comes up. 

This may happen more often than you would think.  Headaches can be your arch nemesis.  They can make a great day turn into a poor day, a delightful evening becomes a dreadful one, an intense movie is now cut short.  Sometimes you can see these coming, and others they are sudden.  

So what do you do?  Wait it out? Seek treatment? Take an excedrin to help? Maybe you don’t know. You’ve tried several different things on your own and with little success.  

First, you need to diagnose the headache you are experiencing. Tension, Migraine, Cluster, or cervicogenic headache, what is it? Depending on what you have will change how you address it.  

We see quite a few people come here to seek questions and guidance on recurring headaches.  So let’s give you a guide on what you and we can do to help.

First thing is to notice if you see any patterns with the headaches.  How frequent are they? What time of day do they come on?  Are they all day, or just part of the day? Are there any related patterns to your sleeping or dietary habits?  To give you an idea, Tension type headaches usually come on later in the day, say after you’ve worked on your computer for the majority of the day. They may last until you go to bed.  Some headaches are due to lack of water or if you are cutting caffeine out of your diet you can have a caffeine withdrawal headache.  Sometimes migraines can be triggered by some types of foods that you eat.  

Tension type headaches; Headaches caused from tight muscles at the base of your skull and/or neck.  These typically come on in the afternoon or evening and go away while you are sleeping.  If not treated or cared for, chronic tension headaches can be constant. From sunup to sun down. 

To treat tension headaches we need to address the tight muscles, some underlying joint dysfunction in the spine.  But that will only give temporary relief.  What needs to be addressed for long tuen care is your work space and your posture.  How you hold yourself throughout the day is what’s causing the muscles in your neck to lead to headaches.  

Migraine headaches; can be from many different causes.  These can come from neurological issues to contact proscriptions, and  food you eat to sleeping patterns.  My recommendation is to keep a journal and track the migraine headaches that you do have.  See if you can find a pattern to anything that might set it off.  

Some research has shown chiropractic treatment at the very beginning of a migraine attack.  With chronic migraine headaches you may have tried many things like chiropractic before.  I see that addressing the migraine headaches with a team approach is very helpful. This would be having multiple medical providers working together with you to help manage the headaches that you are experiencing.  

Cervicogenic headaches;  Headaches caused from dysfunction in the neck. This can be more constant until treated properly.  Cervicogenic headaches can be caused from injury to the neck from whiplash or other trauma to the neck.

That is most likely going to be treated with frequent chiropractic adjustments and first and then management from there.  Adjustments, teamed up with regular exercises for the neck and spine will help this for the long term.  

If you, or someone that you know, are dealing with headaches and would like some guidance on finding relief.  Schedule an appointment and we can see how we can help you.  Our office is in Provo, Utah and our office number is (801)235-9944.