Whether or not you’re experiencing a tension headache, or a migraine, that is something else. But what we do in order to figure out where that headache is coming from, is we want to check first, for proper alignment. When you have proper alignment, the nerves are much happier, your body functions much better. The other thing we want to see is a nice curve in the neck, because that’s another sign of a healthy neck.
The key area when it comes to assessing why somebody or where the headache is stemming from is this area right here is the upper cervical area. This is the occiput, which is the back of the skull, and then we have C1 and C2, those three joints are responsible for the majority of your ability to turn and move. There’s also a tremendous amount of nerves that come out of these areas that go to very important structures, that could also be a part of why you experienced the headaches. For instance, like the eyes, the cheeks, the muscles of the face, as well as your tongue and other key important structures, but it also goes to the muscles in the back of the head.
Sometimes what we’ll find in those muscles is that there’s a spasm, or one side is tighter than the other or trigger points, which is more like a tight knot. That can be one of the exacerbating factors and one of those triggering factors when it comes to why you might be experiencing headaches. This is such a vital area when we are helping a patient with headaches…so that’s why we take an interest in it.
The other key thing that’s when it comes to headaches, is there are actually not just nerves that come out of the neck, there’s also blood vessels that go through it. And that’s one of the real reasons why it’s not a good idea to be self adjusting – just to kind of get a crack or a pop out of your neck – because that blood vessel there can be damaged and set you up for a much bigger problem. So after we’ve checked the alignment we felt for the muscles. We also want to see what else is going on with the skull. If there’s anything that’s obvious that we can rule out as being a causative agent when it comes to experiencing headaches.