When a patient complains of tension headaches, we’ll check their upper neck and often find tension and restriction in the cervical joints. Chiropractic adjustments can help get movement in the joints, help the sub-occipital muscle to relax and take stress off of that nerve. As well as adjustments, we will help give you tips on correct posture, we will provide nutritional counseling to help reduce inflammation, and may suggest magnesium supplementation to help improve blood flow and healing.

Our Clinic's Approach To Treating Tension headaches

What Causes Tension Headaches?

We live in a world of computers and technology now so I see a lot of bad postures resulting from the use of computers, tablets, or phones which put a lot of stress on the upper neck. Poor posture aggravates your sub-occipital muscle which goes from the base of your skull down to your first and second vertebrae. Inside the sub-occipital muscle is a nerve that leaves the upper neck, goes along the back of your head and sits right behind your eyeball. Often, patients come into my clinic and say, “Oh I just got a headache and it’s like right here behind one of my eyes.”

Chiropractic Care

When a patient complains of tension headaches, we’ll check their upper neck and often find tension and restriction in the cervical joints. Chiropractic adjustments can help get movement in the joints, help the sub-occipital muscle to relax and take stress off of that nerve. This will help a headache eventually go away.

While understand that performing chiropractic adjustments on the upper neck may make some patients nervous. Before we begin working on patients, we always talk to you to understand what you are comfortable with. There are different ways to get movement in your without using manual force. We often use a tool called an activator which performs minor movements to gently adjust joints. There are many different ways that we’re able to work on necks so don’t be afraid to come in here to get that work done because if there’s a restriction that’s creating tension headaches, you need to get it worked out.

We may also teach healthy postures and to stay mindful throughout your day so you actively work on improving your postures. Because if we know what aggravates us and causes tension headaches, we can do daily modifications to help reduce that stress so you don’t continue getting tension headaches.

Nutritional Care

If you’re suffering with tension headaches, we may recommend staying hydrated, modify your diet by removing inflammatory foods, and finally magnesium supplementation. Calcium in our blood contracts muscles, magnesium helps to relax muscles.

So that’s how we work on tension headaches. Give our office a call if you have a tension headache and want to make an appointment and we can help you on your journey to health today.