Cure That Headache!

The common response to a headache is “Let me pop a painkiller and hope the pain goes away”. While this isn’t necessarily a bad idea, it’s not a long-term solution for headaches, particularly the ones that that have a musculoskeletal origin.

Most patients are unaware that physical therapy can play an important role in the treatment of headaches.

One of the objectives of physical therapy intervention is adjustment of soft tissues and correction of mechanical dysfunction associated with the headache.

There are several ways that a physical therapist can help achieve this:

• If sensitive tissues in the neck are compressed, the physical therapist can use mechanical or manual traction procedures to facilitate decompression, improve circulation and relieve pressure around the affected tissues.
• The prescription of a home exercise program to improve posture and movement patterns can be another part of the treatment process. Unknown to most patients, poor posture contributes to head and neck pain.
• Depending on the severity of your headache, physical therapy can be a valuable adjunct to medications prescribed by a physician. While medications help control the pain of headache, a regimen of physical therapy improves the body’s inherent ability to fight factors that trigger headaches.

Referred Pain

One of the causes of headache is referred pain (from other parts of the body). When the muscles and joints in the upper back, neck and shoulder are under stress, they become inflamed and cause pain. Due to the complex and interconnected network of nerves and blood vessels in the upper body, this pain often spreads upwards, triggering a headache or a debilitating migraine.

This is exactly where a physical therapist can help. Just call us and we’ll get you started. We’ll do everything we can to put that smile back on your face.