Headaches are one of those health issues that can be difficult to describe, understand and communicate to other people. They can slowly build, come on suddenly and can be hard to pinpoint to particular reason why they begin. Most importantly it is worth visiting a health care specialist to understand why they begin and what can be done to help.
In this blog I will go through 3 different types of headaches that we see very commonly in the clinic.
Tension Headaches
A tension headache is very common. Some of the common characteristics of a tension headache include a pressing or tightening feeling, bilateral location (both sides of the head or face), mild to moderate intensity. Tension headaches don’t normally include nausea or vomiting, but they may include light or sound sensitivity.
Migraine Headaches
Migraine headaches aren’t as common as tension headaches, and they are often mistaken for something else. Quite often, a sufferer will attribute any bad headache pain to a migraine, but this isn’t always the case. Migraine is a condition that can be described as a recurrent headache featuring unilateral (on one side) pulsating pain of moderate to severe intensity. Migraine pain includes nausea and/or sensitivity to light, and it is often made worse with normal physical activity.
Approximately 20% of migraine sufferers will experience a neurological symptom known as an aura before they get a migraine. Auras can be a visual disturbance or other sensory disturbances. Sometimes, auras occur between migraine headache attacks.
Cluster Headaches
Cluster headaches are quite different from both tension headaches and migraines, occurring in only about 1% of the population. While most migraine sufferers are women, men between 20 and 40 are the main recipients of cluster headaches. This type of headache produces severe pain around the eyes or along the side of the head. Attacks usually last from 15 minutes up to 3 hours and have been known to occur 8 times in a single day. Tearing, forehead sweating, and nasal congestion may accompany cluster headaches. The intense pain makes some sufferers restless or agitated during the attack.
These are just some of the many variants of headaches and not everyone is the same. Which is why when you visit us at Top Chiro we take our time with a detailed history to fully understand what is happening to you and how it is affecting your life. The history is very important as it can reveal certain triggers that may initiate an episode or an attack. For example, physical triggers, psychological triggers, or metabolic triggers.
Headaches and Neurology
We then take our time to understand how the condition is affecting the neurology. With many headaches and migraines, we see that the paraspinal temperatures differ at certain levels within your spine, helping us be very specific to where we potentially these issues are arising from. We also see that the cranial nerves become disturbed, which are essentially the functions of your face and other senses. For example, eye function, the movements of your tongue, hearing, or sensation of touch to your face. This allows us to really understand not only your symptoms but the signs for which to monitor.
This is very important because, when somebody starts to feel better, and their migraines/headaches are no longer symptomatic we can check to see if you are vulnerable to another attack or if you are maintaining the corrections made to your spine and nervous system.
I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions or would like further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are more than happy to help in any way that we can. If you would like to book an appointment with me so we can start your healing journey, please click here to use our online booking system or simply give us a call. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Alex
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