Common Conditions We See

Headaches: Don't Reach for Aspirin

The most common reason people seek chiropractic care is for headaches.

When you have a headache, your eyes hurt, your forehead pounds, your neck is sore and tight and your scalp feels as if it's being slowly removed. Lights bother you and noise sets your teeth on edge. Then there are your children, the house, dinner, your spouse and the daily demands of life. You would like to stop the world and get off!

Headaches have been sold to the public as a disease to be "treated." Millions of dollars in advertising are spent annually on the benefits of drugs for headaches. We've bought into this carefully contrived thinking. Let's look at this from a different perspective. The word headache simply means ache in the head. It's not a disease. It's a pain - a symptom. I'm not making light of the symptom: it can be severe and debilitating.

There are different types of headaches-migraines, cluster, tension, occipital (concentrated in the back of the head) and sinus. Each seems to have a different pattern, location, severity and, of course, a drug to deal with it. This is a manufacturer's reality. The pharmaceutical industry would like you to believe and accept the illusion that all of these headaches need to be treated. Why? Because there are billions of dollars of profit at stake! There is no consideration given to the reason why the head aches.

Most people are so busy treating their pain they forget that pain has a reason for being. A headache is your body "talking" back to you and you need to interpret that language. It's a signal to let you know that your body's having a difficult time handling something and the vast majority of headaches are found at the base of the head, in the region of the temples or over the eyes.

Chiropractors have found that many headaches signify a distortion of some of the vertebrae of the neck area affecting the function of the nervous system. You'd be surprised to learn that 85 to 95 per cent of all subluxations I see in adults and children can be traced to a difficult delivery. We call this traumatic birth syndrome. Even an average, uncomplicated delivery can be traumatic for a child.

These subluxations affect the manner in which the nervous system transmits information and can be very catastrophic. When this occurs, certain neck muscles are called into play to protect the nervous system from damage, thus you experience a "tension" headache. Very often, the pain is transmitted to the face and people think it's their sinuses at fault. They reach for sinus medicationand the profit cascade begins!

Then there's the pounding pain in the temple-a migraine. Again-different drugs. And the headaches which come in clusters? More drugs!

Some headaches are not caused by subluxations. They can be caused by wrong diet, poor nutrition and hypoglycemia. I see many of these in my practice. Some are caused by an aneurysm, a disease process, toxicity or a tumour.

No headaches should be taken lightly. Something is not right. Find that something. A trip to your family chiropractor will provide a comprehensive examination to help determine the reason for your headaches and a regimen of nutritional supplements which you can readily obtain at your local health food store.

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