Headaches
As unpleasant as it may sound, headaches are quite common. In fact, headaches are one of the most frequent medical issues individuals have. It is not specific to age, gender, or race and can be caused by a multitude of factors.
Headaches, as the name implies, refers to an unpleasant feeling of pain in the head region, usually accompanied by discomfort, dizziness, and sometimes nausea. It can be attributed to mental or physical stress, anxiety, poor posture, and genetics.
What are Headaches?
Headaches are considered pain or discomfort felt in the head region above the neck. Your brain, blood vessels, nerves, and other tissue types all have a part to play when you have a headache. Fortunately, headaches are rarely life-threatening and can often be handled without medication irrespective of the severity.
High blood pressure, depression, physical activity, mental stress, and even poor spinal support could lead to headaches. Professional chiropractors can easily correct spinal imbalances to relieve the stress in the neck muscles and joints to relieve most headaches.
How They Affect People’s Lives
Almost everybody has experienced a headache in their lifetime. It is not peculiar to any particular group of persons though some people can be more susceptible to it due to genetics and other causative factors.
Severe types of headaches, such as migraines have been linked to cause dizziness, semi-consciousness, double vision, and nausea. Fortunately, most migraines are mild, and with adequate rest, water intake, and avoiding food sensitivities such as alcohol, wine, cheese and chocolate, they can be eliminated.
Some headaches are chronic, recurring, and are localized to one area of the head, while others may be severe enough to force the victim to refrain from light and sound. A person suffering from headache isn’t usually the best person to expect excellent performance from. Such a person will find it hard to focus properly to bring out their best whether in a place of work or school.
How You Can Get Headaches
Getting a headache isn’t rocket science. Excessive mental or physical stress and fatigue can provoke a headache to occur. It doesn’t have to be anything deliberate – worry and anxiety are known to cause headaches because of the associated mental effort the victim suffers from.
People with high blood pressure also suffer headaches due to their over-worked vessels forcing blood to and from the brain. These kind of headaches can be relieved by reducing stress, receiving chiropractic care, and monitoring food intake by eliminating poor food choices.
Depression can also cause headaches if uncontrolled. Changes in hormones and other chemical activities in the brain can also lead to headaches. Social groups, exercise, and getting outdoors can have a beneficial effect on headaches due to depression.
Certain stimulants, such as caffeine, nicotine, sugar, or depressants such as alcohol, pain killers, and sleeping pills can lead to headaches.
Fevers, hangovers, head injuries, dehydration, eye defects, blood loss, brain tumors, poor oxygen availability, poor diet, chewing gum, and side effects from medications can all lead to headaches of different grades.
How People Feel When They Have Headaches
People experiencing headaches are usually in varying degrees of pain and discomfort due to the subjective component of one’s pain tolerance. For instance, migraines can be very painful because they are mostly localized and can cause dizziness and semi-consciousness. The victim might feel like their head is about splitting in two and a fast-acting pain relief may be the best way to reduce the pain.
People experiencing headaches around the eyes, forehead, or temple can be linked to a causative agent, in which an experienced health care provider can help diagnose and treat.
How to Treat Headaches Without Medication
Headaches can be treated easily by simply drinking plenty of water, getting plenty of sleep and refraining from stressful activities. Some headaches may require medication if severe and constant enough. Most people do not like taking medications, over-the-counter, or prescription, and choose to go the natural route by visiting a chiropractor.
Headaches can be caused by poor posture and poor support of the neck bones in your spine. This type of headache will be relieved by taking a pain relief drug but will always come back because the causative factor hasn’t been taken care of.
In this case, visiting a professional chiropractor is the ideal solution. A professional chiropractor will be able to locate the source of your headache, usually a simple bone misalignment causes nerve, muscle, and joint irritation. Improperly positioned vertebrae can cause headaches and a chiropractor can help reduce tension and stress in the bones and correct your posture.Once this irritant is removed, the symptoms resolve, and the patient can go back to their normal lives.
A chiropractic adjustment of the vertebrae in the neck can relieve headaches for good in minutes, days, or weeks depending on the cause of the headache. If chiropractic treatment doesn’t work for you, then your headache might be unrelated to a neck bone misalignment. To find out if your headaches are the result of spinal misalignment and/or muscle tension, call our office today to schedule an appointment.