Are you experiencing neck pain and headaches? You may be surprised to learn that the neck pain can be causing you to have headaches as well. What you probably do not know is that many headaches, even migraine headaches can be caused by irritation of the sub occipital nerve located at the base of your head. So if you have a sore neck and a headache at the same time this is what you will need to do to fix both problems.
Make an appointment to see a chiropractor for your headache . When you go for your exam you will require an x-ray to identify if you have what is known as a subluxation. When a subluxation exists there is an interruption of the adjacent nerve’s ability to communicate with the brain. So if the occiput which sits above the spinal column goes out of place it will prevent the brain from properly communicating with the parts of the head that are controlled by the occipital nerve. This can lead to tremendous headache pain. It will be clearly evident on x ray if you have a subluxation. I can tell from my experience that if your occiput is subluxated then there is a good chance that your neck vertebra are also subluxated as well. The neck subluxation can cause you to be uncomfortable at night. So when you are trying to get restful sleep you may not be getting the sleep your body requires because of the subluxations.
What is important to understand is that subluxations can have sub clinical implications. Try and think of it this way. Your neck has several subluxations and you can have no pain what so ever. After a while you will develop painful sore muscles. When the subluxation exists the bone is no longer able to support the weight it was meant to. The job of supporting the structure falls to the surrounding soft tissue. The muscles, tendons and ligaments all kick in to support the structure. This happens last and this is where you will start to have clinical pain. Your body wants to keep you out of pain. It will do it’s best for as long as it can but then when it can no longer handle the physical load the pain will start. This is due to the fact that the bones lack a significant blood and nerve supply. The soft tissue structures have adequate blood and nerve supply so they will be able to scream the loudest when loaded the most with work.
I really want you to understand this concept. If there are 5 workers doing a job together and one person fails to show up then the work has to be completed by the remaining 4 workers. They can handle it for a while but if it goes on too long they will start to complain. Your body works the same way. The bone can not do it job properly when it subluxates. Then the surrounding tissue has to kick in to support the area. This is when you get a wake up call, mostly pain. Now do you understand it?
The neck spinal bones are called vertebra. They can subluxate for many reasons, sleeping funny is one of them. Fixing the neck vertebra using chiropractic is a better way to treat the subluxation. Pain relievers will minimize the pain but will not fix the problem causing the pain. So if you have a neck problem and it starts to cause you headaches these are not two exclusive events. They are the same event just more complicated. Pain relieving medications buy you more time but do not address underlying subluxations.
Only your chiropractor can treat the subluxations. I see some physical therapists trying to say they can mobilize the cervical vertebra. I would caution you on going that route. Chiropractors are uniquely qualified to treat subluxations. Do you really want someone not fully trained moving your neck around? Probably not. Ask a friend or family member for a referral to their chiropractor. Of course you can “Google” for a chiropractor. If you are in my geographic location I will pop up first usually. My goal is to educate the patient and it begins with the web. I hope you found this article to be helpful and informative. I also hope you don’t get headaches.
