Chiropractic Made Easy - Headaches and Chiropractic

With all the stresses encountered in everyday life, the last thing anyone needs is a headache.  For those who suffer from headaches, whether regularly or only occasionally, you know that a headache not only increases your stress level but makes you feel like you can't "think straight" which in turn makes you feel more stressful which in turn makes your headache seem worse which in turn...Well, you get the picture.
 
People say "It's just tension, I always get a headache when I feel stressed out". Yeah, that may be true and there's a reason for that.  Millions of people experience extra tension and stress everyday but a good percentage don't get headaches.  Ever wonder why?
 
While some headaches are caused by conditions such as high blood pressure, low blood sugar, hormonal changes, hangovers, dental problems, etc. the vast majority of headaches actually originate in the neck.  By correcting the problem in the neck, the cause of the headache can be removed.  "Yeah, yeah, sure, you're a Chiropractor, of course you say you can "fix" headaches and that they come from your neck, that's what you work with.  But my neck is fine."
 
Well, here's why headaches often do originate in your neck...

Tension headaches and migraines are the most common types of headaches and can be triggered by stress or fatigue.  But how does the neck enter into it?  In most cases the underlying cause of a headache is that one of the bones (vertebra) in the neck is out of place (or out of alignment) usually caused by poor posture or an injury.

The sequence of events in a tension headache would go like this:
 
1. A misalignment or vertebra out of place, causes irritation to a spinal nerve;

2. Stress or fatigue trigger the neck muscle to contract;

3. Muscles put pressure on the misaligned vertebra which further irritates the spinal nerve;

4. The irritated spinal nerve sends out "warning" signals to the surrounding neck muscles to tighten up (spasm) to protect your misaligned vertebra;

5. These irritated nerves also send warning signals up to your head muscles which then tighten up too;

6.  The tightening muscles create a chain reaction.
 
A chiropractor helps get rid of headaches by putting the vertebra back in its proper position.  That takes the irritation off of the nerve that is sending the pain message to your head muscles and your brain.