Headaches

So, You Suffer With Headaches..

    Our office has very high success in treating headache patients.  Our success in headache treatment is accomplished drug free and without invasive surgery.  We have had a myriad of success treating migraine headaches as well as tension headaches, and chronic daily headaches.  In fact, the vast majority of our patients have failed with  multiple drug therapies prior to contacting us, typically as a last resort.  If this sounds like you or someone you love, you should consider calling our office for a no obligation FREE consultation.  You can find out about our migraine treatment and treatment for tension headaches before making any commitment to treatment.

    For those of you wishing to know more regarding various causes of headaches, read on...

Tension headache

    Tension headache represents one of the top three reasons patients consult their doctor, (with vertigo and back pain making up the other two).  It is one of the most costly diseases because of its very high prevalence. Tension headache is the most common type of headache. It has also attached the synonymous name of stress headache.  

    The International Headache Society defines tension headache more precisely and differentiates between episodic and chronic types. The following is a modified outline of the IHS diagnostic criteria:

Episodic Tension Headache

Chronic tension-type headache

    Although formerly conceived as muscular contraction, the more likely cause of these headaches is believed now to be abnormal neuronal sensitivity and pain facilitation, not abnormal muscle contraction.  Headache is not related directly to muscle contraction, and possible hypersensitivity of neurons in the trigeminal nucleus caudalis has been suggested.

Frequency:

History: Tension headaches are characterized by pain that is usually mild or moderate in severity and bilateral in distribution. Unilateral pain may be occasionally experienced as well, however. Headache is commonly reported as a constant, tight, pressing, or band-like sensation in the head.     

Migraine Headache

    Migraine pain may be localized to one side of the head, behind the eye, the back of the neck, or about the face. The pain is associated with nausea and sometimes vomiting. Patients become sensitive to light (photophobia), sounds, (phonophobia), and certain smells (osmophobia). Intermittent dizziness may occur. Some patients, called migraineurs, may develop an “aura,” that is, a feeling that comes on before the headaches begin. These auras may be associated with visual changes, such as spots, (scintillating scotomas),  tunnel vision, or wavy lines, (fortification spectrum). The headaches may last up to three days and may occur several times per week or as infrequently as once or twice a year. Women are more prone to migraines than men.

Cluster Headaches

    Cluster headaches are given their name based on the fact that the attacks of pain occur in clusters that may last several weeks to months. The pain is agonizing and usually affects one side of the face, involving severe pain behind one of the eyes with associated nasal congestion and runny nose. Oddly, men tend to get these types of headaches more frequently than women.

Where Do I Begin?

    Before you seek any treatment approach to your headache pain, it would be wise to make sure that the underlying cause of your headache is correctly diagnosed. Evaluations for your headache typically involve your PCP, (Primary Care Provider), however, examination by an appropriately trained neurologist is wise. Our office specializes in extensive neurologic evaluation of each patient prior to undertaking any headache treatment regimen.  It is important that you have your condition(s) properly diagnosed so that you do not waste valuable time should the underlying cause of your headache be  serious and/or progressive, or, should such headache treatment be contraindicated for any reason.  Additionally, any headache treatment that you receive, be it from an allopathic, chiropractic, or other integrative approach, will likely not be as beneficial if it is not diagnosis directed.  The fundamental healing axiom of “first do no harm” must be a guiding principle whenever a medical provider encounters a patient. Patients seeking any form of manipulation should do their homework on the proposed providers and techniques used in order to find competent practitioners capable of performing such procedures as safely as possible. The risks and benefits must be clearly discussed. Just as one chooses their surgeon carefully, so too must a patient evaluate any practitioner who would attempt manipulation. So too should a patient scrutinize any proposed drug therapy headache treatment, or other drug treatment for that matter, without a logical accompanying diagnosis.

    During the course of any headache treatment, it would be extremely wise to maintain a log of temporal course and severity of your headaches.  Rate your headaches from 1-10 on severity, and mark a calendar when you have a headache with the severity rating and also how long it lasted.  This will later prove invaluable when determining the benefits, if any, of your headache treatment, as you will have something to reflect back on to demonstrate reduction of severity or frequency of the headaches.

    If you would like to schedule a free consultation, or just have questions, please contact us using the form on our Contact Page.

References available upon request