Chronic Headaches

Everyone gets a headache from time to time, but if you are getting headaches more than three or four times per week, you may be experiencing chronic headaches. Chronic headaches can be extremely difficult to live with and affect your life dramatically. If you are suffering from chronic headaches, there are treatments available!

Causes of Chronic Headaches

It can difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of a headache because they are so interconnected with everything else that’s happening in the body. In general, headaches stem from stress in the body, often in the muscles of the back and neck. These are the kinds of headaches that chiropractors are especially adept at treating.

In other cases, headaches can be caused by more serious underlying issues, such as stroke or to the blood vessels in the brain, brain damage, or brain tumor. If any of these are causing headaches, or chiropractic care fails to help reduce your headaches, contact your primary care physician right away.

Treatments for Chronic Headaches

When chronic headaches are caused by stress and tension in the body, the best way to treat them is to alleviate that tension. There are several chiropractic treatments that can do this. First of all, massage therapy can be helpful in relaxing the muscles of the back and neck which often hold tension. With frequent massage, you should see a reduction in the number of days you experience headaches.

Another treatment that is effective against chronic headaches is chiropractic adjustment or spinal manipulation. This involves a manipulating the joints of the spine and allowing the spinal column to fall into better alignment. A misaligned spine can cause headaches by putting pressure on the nerves in the spinal cord. Chiropractic adjustment is proven to reduce the number of headache days in patients experiencing chronic headaches.