Migraine & Other Headache Pain Relief

Chiropractic Care Health Clinic provides effective diagnosis and pain relief for migraine and other headaches.

As a holistic practitioner, Dr Salman Khan considers the whole person in his chiropractic approach to headache treatment to restore his patients to tension-free health.

He’ll also offer advice on exercises and stress alleviation, which will help you to avoid headaches in the future.

Types of headaches

While the pain from a headache results from a combination of signals between your brain, nerves, and blood vessels, it’s not known what triggers these messages.

There’re 150 different kinds of headache. And 3 of the most common are:

1. Cluster headache. These are a severe type of headache that produce an intense piercing or burning pain around or behind one eye. They get their name because these headaches tend to occur in groups – cluster periods that can last for months, with headaches 1 to 3 times a day. Symptoms of a cluster headache include a drooping eyelid and reddening of the eye.
2. Sinus headache. Inflamed sinuses in the head can result in a constant, deep pain in the cheek bones, bridge of the nose, or forehead. Symptoms of a sinus headache include a runny nose, ear discomfort, fever, and facial swelling.
3. Tension headache. Prevalent among teenagers and adults, tension headaches cause mild to moderate pain and come and go, generally having no other symptoms.

A headache may also be an indication of a serious underlying issue – such as a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder – particularly if you’re getting headaches more than twice a week, accompanied by a stiff neck or fever.

Natural remedies for headaches

Natural, drug-free remedies for headaches include:

• Magnesium supplements – people who get headaches often have low levels of magnesium.
• Gluten-free diet.
• Lavender oil and peppermint oil.
• Chiropractic.

Chiropractic treatment can help to relieve headaches with spinal manipulation to lessen oxidative stress in the patient, in the same way that antioxidants protect the body from free radicals.

Alleviating the agony of migraine

Migraine is characterised by penetrating headaches – often a throbbing or pounding pain – that can last from a few hours to a few days, typically 1 to 4 times a month.

Although researchers have identified possible causes of migraine, no one has come up with a definitive explanation. One theory is that migraines may be the result of chemical abnormalities in nerve pathways and the brain.

Left untreated, migraine can be life-threatening, leading to stroke or coma. It can also cause permanent blindness.

Migraine symptoms include:

• Oversensitivity to light or noise
• Nausea or vomiting
• Blurred vision
• Loss of appetite
• Upset stomach

Natural remedies for migraine include:

• Vitamin supplements
• Feverfew
• Gingko biloba
• Ginger powder
• Acupressure
• Yoga
• Chiropractic

In many cases, migraine is triggered by tension, and chiropractic can help to reduce the body’s reaction to stress. A study in Australia found that migraine patients who had chiropractic treatment suffered fewer attacks and required less medication.

Keeping vertigo at bay

The term vertigo is frequently and wrongly used to describe a fear of heights (acrophobia). The dizziness of vertigo is a result of your senses telling your brain that your body is off balance when it isn’t.

Vertigo is a sign of an underlying problem, rather than a condition in itself. Causes of vertigo include:

• Migraines
• Inner ear infection
• Nerve infection

Symptoms of vertigo include:

• High temperature
• Ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
• Hearing loss

Ignoring vertigo can lead to more frequent attacks, with worsening nausea that can result in hospitalisation.

Natural remedies for vertigo include:

• Vestibular rehabilitation exercises.
• Sleeping with the head raised on two or more pillows.
• Chiropractic treatment.

Chiropractic treatment for stress-induced headaches, migraine, and dizziness

Tension accounts for more than three-quarters of all headaches.

A common cause of tension headaches is subluxation – partial dislocation of a joint – in the neck or upper back.

For stress, headache pain relief, and migraine pain relief, Dr David Liew can use the direct thrust method of spinal manipulation to move vertebrae back into proper position with direct pressure of the hand.

In cases where the problem is in the neck, trigger point therapy and special massage techniques can be used to ease tight bands of muscle to alleviate headache pain.

Chiropractic adjustments, exercises, and positioning manoeuvres can help to relieve vertigo. If you’re suffering from cervicogenic vertigo, defective motion patterns in the neck send the wrong information about body movement and position to the brain. Chiropractic manipulation can help to resolve this issue.