Are you tired of headaches holding you back?
Tired of being held back by headaches?
Spinal Health Week 2023 was 22-28 May and it is here to help!
It's a national campaign by the Australian Chiropractors Association (ACA) that focuses on improving spinal health for all Australians.
This year, Spinal Health Week highlighted the impact of headaches and providing solutions to relieve your pain. Did you know that over 7 million Australians suffer from tension headaches and more than 4.9 million have chronic migraines?
The cost to the country is a whopping $35.7 billion every year. But the real cost is immeasurable—headaches affect 46% of Australians daily, causing pain, disrupting work and study, and stealing quality time with loved ones.
Headaches come in different types and have various triggers. Some are mild inconveniences, while others can be severe and chronic, severely impacting daily life. Research shows that spinal health, especially in the neck, is closely connected to headaches. That's why it's important for headache sufferers to have their spines checked and consider drug-free chiropractic care. Along with some simple lifestyle changes, this approach can go a long way in reducing pain, preventing headaches, and helping you regain control of your life.
Studies have shown that chiropractic care is effective for the most common headaches: tension headaches, cervicogenic headaches (neck-related), and migraines. In fact, chiropractic adjustments have been shown to reduce migraines in 72% of people surveyed, decreasing their duration and severity. While pain medications may provide temporary relief, they only treat the symptoms and not the underlying cause. Lifestyle factors, like diet and sedentary habits, can also contribute to headaches. Chiropractors can identify these factors and help you make changes to manage or even avoid headaches, improving your overall well-being.
At Align Chiropractic, our team of ACA-accredited chiropractors are trained to find the causes of headaches and provide safe, drug-free care for people of all ages. If you or someone you know is among the 11.9 million Australians suffering from headaches or migraines, it's time to take action.
Contact us today at 03 9696 1057 or book online at alignchiropractic.com.au to schedule an appointment and regain control of your life.
For more information on the importance of spinal health and how it affects you and your family, visit spinalhealthweek.org.au. Join the #SpinalHealthWeek movement and say goodbye to headaches holding you back!
#SpinalHealthWeek #ConsultAChiro #Headache #HeadacheConsultAChiro #southmelbourne #albertpark
4 Steps to Assess people with Headaches
If you or someone you know suffers from headaches than this post is for you.
Below is a video Martin and I made about the steps we take when assessing a client who visits us at Align suffering from headaches.
There are many different types of headache and not all of them respond to chiropractic care. This is why we go through our 4 step process to determine
- What type of headache you are suffering from,
- Are you in the right place and we the right people to help you,
- What steps do you need to take to get on top of your headaches.
If you are concerned about your headaches or just sick of dealing with them, contact us at Align and lets find out how to get you on track.
The video is 3 minutes but for those of you who prefer to read, there is a transcript below the clip.
Hi, Martin here and Kieran from Align Chiropractic and this is a short video to let you know what to expect if you were to come and see us because you've got concerns about your headaches.
Step One:
The first thing when you have headaches, is you want to make sure that you get the opportunity to tell us all about what's been happening with you.
There are a lot of different types of headaches and so we're going to be asking you some really specific questions about the type of headache you have, where in your head you get it, the sort of things that make it better or worse and also the things that your headaches are making it harder for you to do in your life.
This is because while headaches are one part of the problem for, a lot of people the most important thing is to be able to get back to doing the things that they either love to do or need to do in their life.
So step one we're going to be asking some questions and giving you an opportunity to tell us all about your headaches.
Step two
When we're assessing somebody who's come to see us with headaches, is to do a palpatory examination.
A palpatory exam is where we use gentle touch, gentle pressure to assess areas where joints might be restricted in their motion or muscles might have tightened up or there might be areas where there's tenderness that can be part of the trigger for head pain.
We will also often extend beyond that area, once we’ve got an assessment of the neck and upper back to other related areas so we might be feeling out through the shoulders, palpating the jaw or palpating down through the lower back and rest of the spine.
Step Three
When we are assessing somebody who has come to see us for headaches is we look at how their spine bends and moves and twists.
Often when there are imbalances or problems in the way the neck is working it will affect how far you can bend to the left compared to the right. the way that we assess that is to use a process called Inclinometry, which is where we use a precise instrument, called an inclinometer to measure exactly how far you go to the left compared to the right.
So we can assess all the way, comfortable range of motion one way and then see if going the other way is more restricted.
Step Four:
When we are assessing somebody who has come to see us complaining of headaches, is we assess the alignment of their spine.
Posture is the window that we can use to assess how their how well aligned their spine is and we use specialised software to take a digital photo of them from the front and the side we then digitise that to see if there's any significant alteration in their alignment.
The way the software works is we first of all take a photo and it uses the iPad to make sure that we have a photo that is absolutely the software then places our grid around exactly where straight up and down is and then we can compare landmarks on you that should also be aligned to see exactly how straight up and down or symmetrical your posture is.