If you've suffered from headaches at some point, you know how debilitating and life-altering they can be. If you haven't, consider yourself lucky. Because over 90% of Americans suffer with them at one point or another. Headaches rob people of their lives, their families of necessary support, and business owners of productive man hours.
Think about it: how difficult would it be to read your email or the newspaper when it feels like there's a huge knife stabbing into one of your eye sockets. How difficult would it be to haul the kids to practice or make a quick trip to the store when it feels like there's an ice pick poking into your brain stem? I know what I'm talking about, because they once afflicted me. That is, until I went to Doctor School, and learned the causes of and best treatments for the most prominent types of headaches, including my own.
You may not know this, but there are many different types of headaches: allergic, nutritional, migraine, tension, drug-induced, dehydration, and visual, to name only a few. The type I'm going to discuss here is typically called the cluster (or cervicogenic) headache.
In my clinics, 75% of my patients complained of chronic headaches before treatment. And most of my patients "knew" exactly what type of headache he or she suffered from before ever entering my office. Unfortunately, most of them were horribly misinformed.
Keep in mind, I've seen my patients through over 50,000 office visits.So I know what I'm talking about. I've seen every type of headache imaginable. And it's no joke when I tell you that most headaches are caused from lack of oxygen to the cranial nerves in the brain stem. But what the heck does that mean? Read on.
Discussion:
Let's first discuss exactly what we're talking about. Headaches are exactly that - HEAD ACHES. A Head ache is only a symptom. It's NOT a diagnosis. The various types of head aches (symptoms) tell a trained professional where to look further. Unfortunately, most professionals have no idea the cause or the proer diagnosis of headaches. And the typical treatments for them border on the ridiculous. You'll understand why in a few moments.
Let's first understand that headaches can be difficult to diagnose for those that don't understand the intimate anatomy of the upper cervical spine, vertebral arteries and nervous system (CNS + PNS). And it takes a trained professional to do so. Surfing the web to self-diagnose is a horrible idea. So don't do that! Talk to someone you can trust. And now back to the way I diagnose and treat headaches.
First, we're does this dull, achy pain come from? Let's be clear. We are discussing non-acute pain. We are not discussing pain associated with injury or acute situations. Dull, achy pain comes from lack of oxygenation to the local tissue. This includes stagnant, inflamed areas, areas that don't receive enough blood flow, and areas where there is lack of motion (which increases inflammation,) etc. Think about when you wake up in the morning. You're stiff. Your body is literally inflamed from not moving all night. And it's that inflammation that puts pressure on nerves surrounding joints throughout your body. After you move around a little, the stiffness (inflammation) subsides.
The next question you might ask is, "What does this have to do with headaches?" Well, here it is: Because of macro- and microtraumas throughout your life, the joints in your neck don't move properly. And when they don't move fully through their range of motion, long-term inflammation accumulates within those joint spaces. And where there is inflammation, there are also a number of inflammatory agents that come along with it, like free radicals. The joint becomes slightly distended, and it might itch or become painful. This is caused from the lack of oxygenation within the joint space.
As if that weren't enough, there is a secondary effect to the distention of that joint space. Immediately next to each joint in the spine is a nerve. These nerves are the conduit that relays info to and from the Central Nervous System. When there is inflammation in one of the joint spaces, pressure is applied to the nerve sitting next to it. It's been determined that the weight of a dime on a nerve can alter it's funcionality by up to 60%. This aggravation can cause any number of disturbances. Some of them can be 'felt' by you. But most of them cannot, because only 5% of the nervous system is for sensation of some type. The other 95% of the nervous system is responsible for motor control, reflexes, and organ system management. And this is why a stiff neck or back is not just a stiff neck or back. Other things are being affected. You just can't feel it, at least not yet. But let's not get off the subject.
We're talking about what causes pain. When one of these effected nerves run to muscle tissue, it elevates the baseline for contraction. This means that the muscle is in a hyper-tense state at all times. There is a reason for this. Back when we were being attacked by saber-toothed tigers and whatever else, and we got some type of injury, our body would guard the injured area to keep you from using it. It would limit the motion in a joint for fear of further damage. It would tighten muscles surrounding the area. This is exactly what happens in the neck. And, over weeks, months and years, this process continues. You may not feel it for some time. But rest assured, there is dysfunction in some part of your body from the nerve interference. One of the associated symptoms of long-term muscle tension in the neck is, you guessed it, a head ache. When you're more stressed, you have more head aches. When you're dehydrated, you have more head aches.
Additionally, a counter-rotation and subsequent lack of motion specifically between C1 and C2 causes tensile force (picture pulling both ends of a rubber tube-this decreases the size of the inside of the tube=less liquid, or blood) on the vertebral arteries that feed the cranial nerves in the brain stem. When they don't have proper blood flow, they too become dysfunctional. The cranial nerves control and coordinate muscles in the neck (SCM,) the trapezius, swallowing, balance, the righting reflex, blood flow to the sphincters of the stomach and intestines, and most other activities.
This is a lot to take in, but I'm going to offer one more piece of info. This lack of blood flow to the brain stem and lack of motion in the neck affect the SCM muscles in the neck directly. And when that muscle becomes hyper-tense, it causes a distinct pain that goes around the ear and into the back of the eye on the involved side. The pain distribution looks like a big question mark on the side of the head.
These headaches carry any number of AMA-designated diagnoses. But, in my estimation and experience, they can be alleviated relatively quickly-depending on the case.
The fact is that I've helped most of my people to eliminate them completely. Some, however, we could only reduce the frequency and intensity.
If you'd like me to send you a link to a FREE video that will show you how to relieve/eliminate headaches at home, please send me an email by clicking the Flare below. Thanks for reading.
Keep Moving Forward,
Dr. Mark Svetcos