Health blog Category: Headaches
Forget the Advil, Try These Steps to Relieve Headaches
Anatomy of Your Head
To understand the two main causes of headaches, and steps to take to relieve headaches, we need to first understand the anatomy of our head. Our skull is a combination of multiple bones that when put together, form a general circle and thus, a hard protective layer around our brain. On the outside of our skull, there are many muscles that surround the skull. These muscles on the outside have a direct connection to the muscles in our neck and shoulder blades.
Headaches – Poor Posture May Be To Blame
Poor posture may be causing us headaches, discomfort, and stiffness. Headaches can be debilitating and prevent us from playing with our children, having dinner with our families, and completing our daily tasks such as doing the dishes or laundry.
How is your posture? Many of us have sedentary jobs at a desk and/or use mobile technology for day-to-day communications. Think about how you sit when you do these things. It’s easy for us to slip into a poor posture when we’re mindlessly reading emails or sending texts. If our posture issues are not addressed, it can contribute to neck pain, stiffness, nagging headaches, trouble standing up and other painful issues that will prevent us from being able to make that concert with friends or a family gathering. It may even keep us home and unable to go to work and will, most likely, continue to recur.
Ever had a nagging headache that just wouldn’t go away?
By: C. Ashley Border, DPT
Ever had a nagging headache that just wouldn’t go away? Headaches can start for a variety of causes including muscular tension and weakness in the neck, stress, dehydration or low blood sugar, outdated reading glass prescriptions, or something sinister like a stroke, head injury, or other systemic problems in the body.
In the physical therapy world, we treat lots of patients with headaches and often times, the culprit is tightness and tension in the neck muscles which is what we’ll focus on today.
How Physical Therapy Can Get Rid of Your Headaches
By: Angie Austin, LPTA
Headaches are something we have probably all experienced at some point in our lives. In fact, some people experience daily headaches. A headache is associated with pain anywhere in the head or scalp. Sometimes, pain occurs in the neck. The symptoms of a headache can range from an ache or tension-like pain to sharp or piercing pain that can increase or be triggered by a number of causes.
Why isn’t heat, massage getting rid of that headache for good?
By Mike Bills, MS PT
The problem with headaches is that typically, the small muscles in our neck and those covering our skull have gotten into a more permanent state of tightness and pressure. This is why our headaches will often go away for a day or two but then come back. Just like all muscles in your body, the muscles in your neck and skull are like rubber bands. If they are not treated properly, they will gradually shorten over time.
Read full blogExperiencing Recurring Headaches or Migraines…
Anyone with recurring headaches or migraines are well aware of the possible debilitating pressure and pain that can prevent us from the likelihood of either getting out of bed or it landing us in bed away from the lights and sounds that can compound the pain. It can take our entire day away from us so we are not able to:
- Cook breakfast in the morning
- Pack lunches and get our kids off to school
- Run errands
- Do the laundry
- Go to work
Many of us have probably experienced a headache at one point or another and some of us may have even experienced migraines.
Read full blogThree tips to stand up straighter with less discomfort
By: Devin Wurman, DPT
These days, more people are working sedentary jobs at a desk and/or using mobile technology for their day to day communications. Think about how you sit when you do these things. How is your posture? It’s so easy for us to slip into a poor posture when we’re mindlessly reading emails or sending texts. The problem is that these poor postures are a direct cause of neck discomfort.
Tight Muscles or Knots
By Kate Zanoni, LPTA
Neck problems, neck spasms and general neck pain are common complaints in the orthopedic rehab world, and we’ve certainly treated our share of patients who suffer from various conditions related to neck pain at LSTC. With the high prevalence of desk jobs, the influx of cell phone use, computer use and video gaming, as well as time spent relaxing in front of the TV, our posture certainly suffers more often than we realize.
