When someone deals with chronic headaches, things can feel miserable. Simple life tasks become daunting, and trying to make it through the day can be a painful, frustrating process. Fortunately, there are options available, and recruiting the help of chiropractors in San Diego can be the most effective option. Read on to learn about treating headaches with chiropractic solutions.
Why Headaches?
Chronic headaches can be caused for many different reasons, and no one person’s situation is exactly the same as anyone else’s. Tight muscles, uneven spinal columns, herniated disks, whiplash, and general imbalances can create tension in the head and neck, resulting in headaches that last longer than a few hours. Those headaches can return day after day with varying frequency and intensity. Tension, stress, and other causes can make the muscles of a person’s face and neck contract, triggering painful tension headaches. Additionally, chemical imbalances, strain on blood vessels, and sensitized pain systems can contribute to headache pain.
What Can Be Done?
Painkillers are often the go-to remedy when it comes to headache pain. This is not a good long-term solution, however, for many different reasons. Addiction and dependency should always be a concern with long-term prescription drug use, and taking medications for long periods of time often has negative health repercussions. Additionally, medication only masks the problem rather than treating the cause, and it numbs the body’s signals that something is wrong while ignoring the root of the problem. Finding effective treatment solutions is a much better answer to the problem of chronic headaches.
A trained, educated chiropractor will be able to assess a person’s spine and musculature to help determine the cause of the headache. A spinal examination can help to assess neuromusculoskeletal causes of headaches, and then treatments can be prescribed. Spinal adjustments, manual massages, heat and ice therapies, exercises and stretches to improve posture, and other treatments can be applied to a person’s specific situation, treating migraines and headaches.