What does a train station have in common with your head? Both are places where things travel in and out. Arteries are the main transport network into your head. Oxygen, nutrients, hormones, chemical signals, all are transported by the blood.

Chemical headaches occur because the brain is exposed to chemicals by the blood.  Exposure to carbon monoxide, lack of oxygen and nasty chemical fumes are common ways of getting a chemical headache. Since New Year’s Eve is coming up, we certainly can’t forget alcohol as a culprit!  Happy new year!

Prescription medications are an emerging source of headaches. A lot of drugs have headaches listed as a possible side effect. When multiple medications are being used at once they can cause what I can only describe as a chemical overload headache. Pain relievers can also cause chronic headaches, particularly if they are used a long time. Like caffeine, your body gets used to having it in the system and whenever the levels get too low you can get a headache as your body starts to go into withdrawal. It’s creepy to think of going through withdrawals, I know. It makes you wonder where the line is, between use and abuse. Just because you got a prescription for it doesn’t make you immune to getting hooked. 

The only recommendation I can make to you on that topic is to use Chiropractic for pain relief while you take as few pain medications as possible. If you don’t know if we treat whatever hurts, just ask. You might be surprised at what we can help you with.  As to the other medications, you should ask your doctor if that could be an issue, and what to do about it.

James Beauchamp, DC

I woke up Wednesday with a tension headache, so that is my topic for the week.  "Gee Dr. B, how'ja know it was a tension headache?"  Well my neck was sore at the base of my skull and my forehead hurt.  There are two parts of your head that extend from your forehead to the base of your skull:  the meninges and the scalp.  Since meningitis is rare and I didn't have a fever, it seemed likely my headache arose from muscle tension. 

It is not just the scalp muscles that can cause a muscle tension headache.  Almost all of the muscles from the top or your shoulders (the traps) through the muscles at the base of your skull can, if painful, send pain to your head, even if the muscles themselves are not even very sore.  The exact placement of the pain and being able to reproduce it by deep pressure on the muscles gives us a pretty accurate diagnosis of exactly where the pain is coming from.

Fixing a tension headache is one of my favorite things to do in practice.  The results are so good so often that I have huge confidence im my ability to help someone.  It's like playing the guitar.  There is a neck on a guitar, and the strings are like the muscles from your neck to the shoulders.  I simply feel where the strings are too tight and tune you up.  Instead of an off key twang of pain, you then sing the melody of peace and relaxation. 

I couldn’t decide on whether to do sinus or tension headaches today. But since its pouring rain outside sinus sounds good to me. Very often people mistake tension headaches for sinus headaches. There are actually a lot of things below the surface of the forehead that can cause a headache, including the blood vessels of the brain, the meninges, bone, muscle and of course the sinuses. The frontal sinuses are located above and between the eyes, but there are also sinuses under the cheek bones and even deeper.

The main thing I look at when you are telling me about your ‘sinus’ headache are the symptoms coming with it. If your nose is plugged, drainage, feeling generally ill or fever then sure, sinus sounds reasonable. But more often than not, I find that your ‘frontal headache’ will also go the back of the head. If so then it is most likely coming you’re your neck. Sinus headaches just don’t ‘go there’. You could have a tension headache AND a sinus headache, but I just don’t see that too often.

If you have an infection, the general rule of thumb is that clear nasal discharge is viral and greenish yellow is bacterial, as well as just being gross. From a natural health perspective, I like to adjust the neck to relax any tightness that may be interfering with drainage even in a sinus headache. I have had more than one patient get sudden drainage after a treatment. There are also some cranial techniques that promote drainage.

If you get recurrent infections, I would also look at the overall health of your immune system. There are also a lot of natural products we carry that boost immunity naturally. Last but not least, dietary issues can show up as excessive mucous which can cause a headache as well as an infection.

I couldn’t decide on whether to do sinus or tension headaches today. But since its pouring rain outside sinus sounds good to me. Very often people mistake tension headaches for sinus headaches. There are actually a lot of things below the surface of the forehead that can cause a headache, including the blood vessels of the brain, the meninges, bone, muscle and of course the sinuses. The frontal sinuses are located above and between the eyes, but there are also sinuses under the cheek bones and even deeper.

The main thing I look at when you are telling me about your ‘sinus’ headache are the symptoms coming with it. If your nose is plugged, drainage, feeling generally ill or fever then sure, sinus sounds reasonable. But more often than not, I find that your ‘frontal headache’ will also go the back of the head. If so then it is most likely coming you’re your neck. Sinus headaches just don’t ‘go there’. You could have a tension headache AND a sinus headache, but I just don’t see that too often.

If you have an infection, the general rule of thumb is that clear nasal discharge is viral and greenish yellow is bacterial, as well as just being gross. From a natural health perspective, I like to adjust the neck to relax any tightness that may be interfering with drainage even in a sinus headache. I have had more than one patient get sudden drainage after a treatment. There are also some cranial techniques that promote drainage.

If you get recurrent infections, I would also look at the overall health of your immune system. There are also a lot of natural products we carry that boost immunity naturally. Last but not least, dietary issues can show up as excessive mucous which can cause a headache as well as an infection.

Welcome to my headache blog.  You are in for a treat. I am going to show you how to look at headaches through MY eyes.  From the point of view of 23 years of Chiropractic experience, as well as my 23 years of headache experience.  Not to mention the peculiar way I see things in general, for which I beg the readers forgiveness in advance.  Of course I will also address what I can do for you as a Chiropractor, and what you can do for yourself, to help you or someone you know who suffers from headaches.

When I look at your headache, I imagine that I can see all the structures of your head, as if you were transparent.  The exact location of your pain, or the places it travels from and goes to, are super important.  Look at that transpatent head picture in your own minds eye and think of all the stuff that may lie underneath.  The skin coveres everything.  There are blood vessels, lymph glands and nerves all over the place.  Further in we come to bones, and those organs they partly surround like your eyes, ears, nose, sinuses, mouth and throat.  Any of these can give you a headache.  In particular, the bones and joints of both the head and neck are huge factors in common headache complaints.  Inside the skull the brain, its "skin" the meninges, and the brains' blood vessels are all potential sources of pain.  Lastly, the substances transported into and out of the head area can also give you a headache.  Too much blood pressure, too little sugar,  drugs, gasses and chemical fumes, the list goes on and on. 

Do you have a particular type of headache you are interested in?  Just let me know.  I take questions and will respond in the blog.  Lastly, keep in mind some of the symbolism of the head as we read along, as that influences headache expression.  I want this to be a fun and thought provoking head trip, and not a crown of thorns.