Cervicogenic Headache Relief
“It feels like my scalp is being pulled back”
“It’s like a vice grip seeing down on my temples”
“Every day it creeps up on me and won’t go away until I fall asleep, and lately I’m even waking up with them”
These are just a few of the ways our practice members describe their cervicogenic headaches.
What Causes Cervicogenic Headaches?
“A cervicogenic headache is a common chronic and recurrent headache that usually starts after neck movement. It presents as unilateral pain that starts in the neck and usually accompanies a reduced range of motion of the neck. It could be confused with a migraine, tension headache, or other primary headache syndromes.” (NIH)
Cervicogenic headache is a secondary headache, which means that it is caused by another illness or physical issue. In the case of cervicogenic headache, the cause is a disorder of the cervical spine and its component bone, disc, and/or soft tissue elements.
Lately, we’ve seen in our practice here in Louisville, Colorado a huge spike in headache and migraine cases. This is because of the undue stress that we have all been put under with the current crisis. People are feeling a huge amount of emotional stress, which is often felt in the neck and shoulders as tension or stiffness. Pair that with many people working from home, at a laptop on the kitchen table, or worse yet, on the couch! These dismal ergonomic positions are wreaking havoc on people’s posture, and the ultimate postural support, your spine. This can cause spinal misalignments also known as Vertebral Subluxation Complexes. 
What Can Help Relieve a Cervicogenic Headache?
Of course, drugs can make the pain disappear, but it just returns the next day.
Stress reduction techniques like deep breathing, Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR), or meditation are essential but do not need to be done in any kind of “woo woo” way, in fact, these techniques are very mainstream at this point.
I always recommend massage or other soft tissue or body work to address the myofascial tension component.
How Can Chiropractic Help?
However, what most people miss is their spinal alignment. Yoga or stretching can help, but by taking a thorough look at the spine you are clueless as to whether it is the root cause of your tension headaches. What I find is that it is often the primary condition or cause of the problem, yet we treat all the secondary conditions as a result of the misalignment. We massage and stretch only to get tense again, we pop pills and the pain comes right back, and we practice relaxation techniques only to go right back into our stressed-out “fight or flight” survival responses because that is where we are stuck.
I use a thorough neurological exam and specialized x-ray exam to find the exact vertebrae(s) (spinal bones) that are misaligned. After that, I use a focused type of adjustment that is very gentle and realigns one bone at a time, so no twisting, popping, or cracking of the neck. I find this focused approach gets the quickest and most predictable results. In fact, I can confidently say I have never had a person with headaches that I couldn’t help!
If you are struggling with tension headaches, try a few of the recommendations I gave above. If you are doing those and they are not working, consider coming in for a consultation and Neuro-Structural Testing to see if we can help you feel better and live your best life!!