Migraine headaches are diagnosed if you have had 5 or more attacks, lasting at least 4 hours to several days and have either nausea, sensitivity to light or sound. Migraines are very painful and have recently been found to alter your brain structures causing lesions - not good. Migraines affect the blood vessels underneath your skin of your head. These blood vessels enlarge and with painful chemicals that are released by your nerves that cause inflammation also irritates the blood vessels. Because your sympathetic nervous system is involved (your fight or flight response), this causes the nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Most migraine suffers are women with a family history of migraines and are between the teenage years up to early 50's.
Most of this I suspect you knew, especially if you suffer from Migraines. As well as all the potential triggers associated with Migraines, even though the triggers do not always cause a Migraine. Common triggers are: stress, light, noise,alcohol, menstrual cycle, low blood sugar, etc. Recently researchers are linking Migraines with people who are obese or a gene mutation.
Most common ways to deal with Migraines is with medications, such as:
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- Naproxen,Ibuprofen,acetaminophen
- SSRI's antidepressants
- Fioricets or Fiorinal
- Betablockers
- Botox
- Surgery, usually to cut the zygomaticotemporal nerve.
Of course lifestyle changes of exercise, sleep, reduce stress are also encouraged. For many (not all) they still suffer from Migraines that are dramatically interfering with the quantity and quality of their life.
New Approach...
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This approach looks at the nervous system and the inner frame-work of your body. We know that your sympathetic nervous system is involved with Migraines, this there can be no doubt. We also know that there is a normal range for your spine. As a Structural Chiropractor, which is a little different from conventional chiropractor we look for these abnormal structural shifts in the spine that are adversely affecting your nervous system.
The patients that we help that have suffered from Migraines usually have a history of some sort of trauma to their spine - the neck specifically. For example, one young patient fell from a playground jungle gym on to her head. This trauma set the stage for this young patient (yrs old ) to have chronic Migraines. What we found with our examination is that the top two spinal bones (vertebrae) were abnormally shifted causing irritation of the nervous system. We detected this shift and then corrected this patients abnormal shift with our gentle non-invasive SCI. She now does not have chronic Migraines.
Many patients have gone to many health professionals and have received many medical tests, for example;
- EEG's
- MRI's
- CAT Scans
They are typically looking for brain bleeds, strokes,tumors, CSF flow, infections, etc. Now, if all these other causes have been ruled out and you STILL are having Migraines than having an examination that specifically looks for abnormal shifts of the upper part of your cervical spine (neck ) is reasonable.
Many of my patients that come to me because of Migraines ask the question, " Why didn't anyone else find these structural shifts?" The simple answer to this question is that most healthcare professionals do not know about structural shifts in the spine and do not specifically look for them, it's just not in their thought process.
What do we do if we find these structural shifts?
If these abnormal shifts or deviations are found we plan out a course of care that includes non-invasive gentle specific corrections using our SCI, along with structural rehab and complementary requirements. The goal of care is to reduce and eliminate these abnormal shifts of your spine allowing your body to normalize nervous system function.
Many patients use our services as a complement, meaning they are doing one or more of the more common approaches to Migraine treatment and adding our care, they have found that with the addition of our care their Migraine frequency,intensity and duration of Migraine have diminished substantially. We work closely with most family doctors, neurologists in the area and have a good understanding of each others methods and goals.
There is hope!
Have a great day!
Dr. Chris
