Headaches Treatment In Jacksonville, FL.

Everybody knows that headaches are one of the most painful and disruptive symptoms a person can experience. When an intense headache hits, it’s difficult to do anything besides just trying to survive. Headaches are a pervasive problem: roughly 50% of people report having at least one headache a year, and 4% of the world’s population struggles with headaches 15 or more days every month – that’s a lot of suffering! There are many different varieties and causes of headaches, including medical conditions (infection, high blood pressure), emotional causes (anxiety, depression, stress), environmental ones (allergies, weather, pollution), and physical ones (tight muscles, injury, nerve irritation or pressure).

We want to stop your headaches and prevent them from returning. Feeling better in the short term is good, but what’s really good is having the confidence that the pain isn’t going to come back.

There are lots of things that can cause headaches. That’s why the first step is investigating the root cause of your headaches and determining whether or not chiropractic is the solution for you. When your spine loses its proper alignment or degenerates, it begins to put undue pressure on your nerves. This misalignment is called a subluxation and is one of the leading causes f headaches. If subluxation is causing your headaches, we’ll definitely be able to help!

It all starts with your chiropractor taking your history, performing an evaluation, and understanding your goals for your health. That way, we can be sure that we’re the chiropractors for you and that your results will be as good as you deserve.

From there, we perform an examination and possibly take X-rays of your spine, including your neck. X-rays can tell us if there’s any damage in your spine, how severe it is, how long it’s been there, and most importantly, what we need to do to help you get the best results possible.

This is a normal side-view x-ray of the neck, with this person facing to the right. You can see that their spine curves forward, making a nice arching shape. That’s what we want to see! The bones are healthy, and so are the disc spaces between the bones. This spine is healthy and flexible, where pretty much everybody starts.

And then, the stresses of everyday life start to add up, and if the person doesn’t do anything to maintain the health and alignment of their spine, things can change dramatically.

Now take a look at this X-ray. Really different, isn’t it? We can see the normal, healthy curve is almost completely lost. Some significant signs of degeneration and wear and tear indicate the damage started long ago. The disc spaces have narrowed, causing even more pressure and stress on the nerves. This person is most likely feeling all kinds of unnecessary symptoms, including headaches.

The X-rays are essential, but they’re just one part of the bigger picture: figuring out what’s causing your headaches so you can get better.

There are many different factors when it comes to headaches. To help you get better, we may help with nutritional advice. We may also help you come up with ways of changing your work setup, which can encourage better posture and healthier habits for your spine. Other essential factors include sleep and hydration. Improving these factors often helps headaches improve, and we’ll also help with those.

Here at Beyond Bones, we focus most heavily on just one thing to help get rid of your headaches: delivering high-quality, effective chiropractic adjustments. Our patients do better when we keep it simple and remove other distractions from the healing process.

We’re excited to see how we can help you!

How We Treat Headaches in Jacksonville, Florida

Comprehensive Consultation and Exam

For us to help you, we need to get to know you. Everybody’s different, with a unique life history, unique problems, unique strengths, and unique goals. That’s why it’s so important that we understand your specific situation to determine what’s causing your headaches. See, the best way to eliminate any problem – including those headaches – is to get rid of the cause of them.

The first step toward getting better is a private consultation with your chiropractor, who will need to truly understand what’s bothering you, how your headaches are interfering with your life, and what’s behind them. If we don’t take care of the cause of the problem, your headaches will keep returning. We’ll need to perform some simple but crucial tests to see how your spine moves and locate problem areas. The whole purpose of this process is to determine what’s causing your headaches, how to get rid of them, and how to prevent them from coming back.

How Chiropractic Care Works to Eliminate Headaches

Chiropractic works to eliminate headaches by changing the way your body operates and getting rid of the cause of those headaches. Subluxation is a state of being. It’s the state of having more stress in the body and spine than is healthy and manageable. That stress puts your nervous system under pressure and causes significant problems in your health and how you feel. Headaches are one of the most common (and disturbing) signs of subluxation.

Chiropractic works like a powerful reset. It allows you to move from a state of stress to a state of ease. Each adjustment lowers your body’s stress, bringing you closer to a pain-free state of balance and ease. You’ll be able to feel that.

Chiropractic isn’t meant to provide a temporary solution. Over time, with repetition, your adjustments have the cumulative effect of helping make a state of relaxation and ease your normal mode of operation. A spine and body that are relaxed and flexible have the best possible chance of keeping headaches away…for the long term.

Why We Take an X-Ray on Every Patient Who Comes in With Headaches

At Beyond Bones, we don’t take any chances when it comes to your headaches. Headaches are too painful, too disruptive, and too damaging for us to risk getting it wrong.

That’s why we take X-rays on every patient with headaches: if the root cause of your headaches is in your spine, then we can help, and it’s critical we take action as soon as possible. If the cause of your headaches is somewhere else, then it’s important we refer you to someone who can help as quickly as possible. An X-ray gives us the most precise possible picture of the health and state of your spine, so we know the best way to get things improving as quickly as possible. Your spine may have excessive wear and tear or be degenerating, or have started to lose its proper alignment. These things are very important to know!

Whether we can help with your headaches or need to refer you to someone else, it’s essential to know that as soon as possible. Either way, it’s all about getting rid of your headaches as quickly as we can.

Common Types of Headaches in Jacksonville, FL

Migraine Headaches

Migraine headaches are deservedly well-known as one of the worst physical symptoms a person can suffer, and there are very few things that are as disruptive to a person’s quality of life. The Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that more than 10% of the world’s population suffers from migraines. Migraines generally strike younger people below fifty years of age and are roughly three times more common in women than men.

The pain from a migraine can be throbbing or pulsing and extreme, and it usually occurs on one side of the head. Unfortunately, pain isn’t the only symptom associated with this type of headache. They can also cause nausea and vomiting or sensitivity to light and sound. Some sufferers of migraine headaches also experience a visual disturbance called an ‘aura.’ These often appear as flashing lights or zig-zag lines and may occur before or during a headache. Regardless of the individual’s migraine symptoms, headaches like these are a serious problem that severely limits the quality of a person’s life.

Cervicogenic Headaches

Cervicogenic headaches occur when neck problems lead to pain felt in the head. A cervicogenic headache follows the occurrence of a physical or neurologic condition: fracture, dislocation, whiplash, infection, or cancer. The pain is usually a dull, steady ache that sometimes grows more intense. In most cases, the pain occurs only on one side of the head and neck. It often starts at the back of the head and then wraps around to the front. Cervicogenic headaches usually come intermittently and gradually get more frequent, sometimes even to the point where they’re constant.

Other symptoms can come along with cervicogenic headaches. There may be pain in the shoulder or arm on the same side or reduced flexibility in the neck. Sometimes, there may even be swelling in the eyes or blurred vision. Cervicogenic headaches can be triggered by sudden movements from sneezing or coughing, abnormal postures, or pressing on the neck.

Whiplash Headache

Headaches are one of the symptoms frequently occurring after a car accident, sports incident, or other whiplash injury. Like the crack of a whip, this type of injury involves a quick, violent back-and-forth motion. It usually results in neck pain, fatigue, dizziness, tingling/numbness in the arms, and headaches.

The pain of a whiplash headache typically starts at the base of the skull and travels up into the head. Usually, the range of motion of your neck is less than normal, and the headache gets worse with neck movement. A whiplash headache may also come with concussion-like symptoms. If you suspect your headache may be related to a whiplash injury, it’s important to seek attention immediately to rule out broken bones or other damage.

Pregnancy Headaches

Among the other challenges and changes (and excitement!) of pregnancy, many pregnant women also experience headaches. Pregnancy headaches are more common in the first trimester because of the sudden and dramatic hormonal changes that occur early in pregnancy. They often feel like a squeezing pain, or a dull and steady ache, on both sides of the head.

Besides hormonal changes accompanying pregnancy, other causes of pregnancy headaches include decreased sleep, higher stress, dehydration, and the abrupt stopping of caffeine consumption. Pregnancy headaches typically don’t harm the developing baby, but they can cause unnecessary discomfort to the mother. In rare cases, these headaches can be a sign of pre-eclampsia. These are all reasons to investigate what’s causing your headaches.

Cluster Headaches

These are one of the most painful of all types of headaches. They occur in ‘cluster periods,’ where the headaches arise frequently. A cluster period can last for up to months, followed by remission periods, in which the headaches stop entirely for months or even years. While cluster headaches are very painful, they are quite rare and can be controlled.

Cluster headaches commonly wake the person up in the middle of the night with intense pain (often described as ‘excruciating’) in and around one eye. Cluster headaches often appear with some of the following symptoms: restlessness, excessive tearing, redness and swelling of the eye, a drooping eyelid, and a stuffy or runny hose. In most cases, once the attack has ended, the person will be exhausted but gratefully pain-free.

Frequently Asked Questions about Headaches