1. What are some of the symptoms of headaches and migraines?

Many people deal with headaches and migraines each and every day. The most common symptoms of headaches are dull achy head pain, tightness or pressure in the forehead, scalp and neck tenderness. Migraines differ since they can accompany nausea, vomiting, light sensitivity, blind spots, and arm tingling. Depending on the type of headache they can last a few hours up to a few weeks.

2. What are the traditional treatments for headaches and migraines?

The traditional treatments for headaches and migraines are drugs, drugs, and more drugs. Simple tension headaches may be treated with simply Ibuprofen or aspirin. Severe headaches are most commonly treated with triptans and narcotics. Migraines are usually treated in a preventative manner with anitidepressants, anticonvulsants, and muscle relaxers. All medications carry side effects.

3. Are headaches and migraines a normal part of life?

No, headaches and migraines should not be a normal part of life. This is your body’s response to a problem internally. The problem may be as simple structural tension or much more complex like an allergy to foods or other environmental factors. Testing should be done to determine the problem.

4. What treatments do you offer at your clinic for headaches and migraines?

We offer several different treatments in the office. We always perform a thorough examination and ask a series of questions from your ADL’s to the types of foods you eat regularly. This gives us the necessary information need to determine treatment. Chiropractic manipulation has shown great results over the years in alleviating structural problems and postural tension. We also offer allergy testing to rule in/out environmental allergies as well as food sensitivity if necessary. Or nurse practitioner, Jessica, can also administer a sphenpalatine ganglion nerve block to alleviate headaches and migraines in office. We have had great success with many different types of headaches.

5. What advice would you give someone suffering with headaches or migraines?

The advice given to all of our headache patients is try alternative methods first! Drugs are just masking the problem and not fixing anything! The goal is to get to the root of the problem and remove the problem by making the necessary adjustments to the patient and limit the body’s response. This will stop the headaches.

By Nathan Ruof D.C.