Tension Headaches: Home Care

Overview

When asked about how often she gets headaches, a patient told one of my colleagues, “Just the normal amount.” “How often is that?” “Just 2-3 a week.” Knowing how debilitating headaches can be, that sounds like a lot. So how many headaches a week are normal? The answer is zero. You should only get a few headaches a year. There are a number of lifestyle tricks you may need to incorporate to eliminate your headaches, but those changes have other benefits to your life too.

Symptoms

• Pain at the top of the neck
• Pain compressing your head like a headband
• Pain in your temples on the sides of your head by your eyes
• These headaches can last 30 minutes to a few days

Course of Treatment

These are the easiest headaches to treat, but can be up there with migraines on how persistent (chronic) they are if you don’t take care of them. These are most commonly caused by faulty movement in the neck or jaw leading to muscle tension and trigger points causing pain. Our chiropractors check the joints of your neck for restrictions and adjust the joint in the way they suspect will lead to the most relief with the least amount of pain in the process. We then check the neck musculature for tension and knots that were resolved by the adjustment, treat them accordingly, then teach you how to take care of the headaches at home. 

Recurrent headaches significantly decrease over time as persistent restrictions in joint motion resolve, usually within six visits. We then shift focus more on preventing future headaches with exercise and lifestyle habits until the pain is completely gone and we shift to wellness or episodic care depending on patient preference and life circumstances.

Sometimes your life is not flexible enough to include adequate prevention. In such cases, home care is extremely important for managing symptoms.

Home Care

Taking time to rest, take some slow deep breaths and unwind will help tremendously, even if it’s only a minute or two. While you’re going about your day you can massage the muscles of your neck shown below. I’ve also attached a video that shows a thorough massage you can follow and perform on yourself.

The best treatment for headaches is prevention. Getting regular adjustments is extremely beneficial for preventing headaches. Otherwise, here are some pointers that will prevent a lot of tension headaches:

• Take time to unwind daily (mindfullness)

• Eat one more vegetable per day (nutrition makes a difference)

• Drink enough water 

• Exercise regularly (improves your body’s blood pressure control)

• Do guided meditation (This is a good one to start on)

• List what is contributing to your stress and plan a response to each

• Change how you emotionally respond to stressful situations (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

Apply a few of these and you’ll start to feel more in control of your headaches. As always, there’s helpful resources below. Next week we’ll jump into migraines.

Comprehensive Headache Massage Video

National Institute of Health article on headaches

Photos by Andrea Piacquadio and Gray's Anatomy (wikimedia)