Tension Headache

How to Get Rid of Your Tension Headaches

So many people experience the debilitating pain that is caused by a headache. When you have a headache, often, all you can think about is finding a way to get out of pain. Luckily, there are effective treatments available for the most common types of headaches that don't require you to take medications.

If you would like to learn more about migraines and what you can do to get rid of them, see our Migraine page.

What are Tension Headaches?

Tension Headaches are the most common form of headaches. The pain can be either dull or sharp. People will commonly describe the pain as a band around their head. Sometime the pain starts at the base of the skull and then spreads forward up to the eye. Tension headaches will often get worse as you go throughout the day.

People who suffer with tension headaches also experience tightness and sensitivity in the neck, the shoulders, and at the back of the head.

What are the causes of Tension Headaches?

Having tension headaches does not necessarily mean that you have to be stressed out to get them, though stress can be a factor. Tension headaches are caused by the tightness in the muscles of the upper back, the shoulders, and the neck. These tight muscles can pinch a nerve at the base of the skull, that travels up the back of the head to the eye.

Much of the tightness in the muscles that are causing the headaches, can be a result of poor posture. Sitting at the computer too long, slouching, or even possibly dealing with a curvature in the spine can all make the muscles tight and start a tension headache.

Once the muscles have become tight through bad posture, correcting your posture alone, does not remove the muscle tightness. Muscles once tight, will most of the time stay tight until they are worked on.

Fixing your Tension Headache (Why medications are not the best option)

The problem with medications is that they generally don't do much to correct the real problem of a headache. The headache medications can also be damaging to the body. In fact, it is estimated that several thousand people in the United States die from a class of drugs known as NSAIDs. (Estimations have ranged from 7,600 deaths per year to 16,500 deaths per year). NSAIDs include many of the common over the counter pain medications that people take, such as Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, and Aspirin.

In 2001, a study performed at Duke university, compared medications against the effectiveness of alternative methods for the treatment of headaches. Concerning chiropractic treatments, they stated that “spinal manipulation resulted in almost immediate improvement for those headaches that originate in the neck, and had significantly fewer side effects and longer-lasting relief of tension-type headache than a commonly prescribed medication.”

What do you do for headaches at Springville Chiropractic?

At Springville Chiropractic we will adjust the spine to help align and free up the motion of the neck and the back. We also use a specialized technique called Trigenics® which works amazingly well at changing the tone of the muscles. With properly functioning muscles and joints, no longer do you need to suffer with the pain of headaches.

Call us today and stop suffering with that headache.