Headache Relief St. Francis, MN
Headache Relief in St. Francis, MN. How do you usually deal with crippling headaches and migraines? Immediately reach for the shelf for Advil? Lie down? Try to power through and get through your day, knowing it's going to be hard for you to focus or do anything? More and more people in the St. Francis area and throughout the United States are finding chiropractic care to be their preferred method of treatment for headache relief. If headaches are making it difficult for you to live the life you want to, feel free to give us a call today at (763) 568-7869 or contact us online.
Headaches We Offer Relief For in St. Francis, MN
There are more than 150 classifications of headaches. They're generally broken down into two larger categories: primary headaches, wherein the headache itself is the relevant health issue, and secondary headaches, which are caused by health issues like a tumor, blunt force to the head, hypertension, or dehydration. St. Francis, MN chiropractors normally help find headache relief for headaches that are not caused by an underlying condition. There are four ordinary types of primary headaches:
Migraine Headaches
Most people find that migraines occur on only part of the head. Migraines affect approximately 12% of the population, a quarter of whom experience a migraine with aura, which are severe headaches accompanied by visual disturbances, including:
- Blind spots
- Seeing Shimmering spots or stars
- Partial loss of vision
- Numbness
- Muscle fatigue
- Difficulty speaking
Once a migraine starts, symptoms include vomiting, sensitivity to light/sound, and throbbing pain. Pain can be mild to unbearable, and a migraine can last between 2 and 72 hours. Anyone who's suffered from migraines knows how crippling they can be.
Migraines are a frequent cause of vertigo, which is not only debilitating but increases chance of injury because of falling.
Tension Headaches
Most headaches that most people have are tension headaches, which are often associated with muscle tension in the neck. Also referred to as "hatband" headaches because it feels like a tight band is going around your head, they will affect up to 65% of men and 86% of women at least once in their life. They typically begin with a pressure-like symptom that develops into a dull pain, and can last from 30 minutes, to hours, or even days. In addition to pressure, other symptoms include tenderness around your upper body from the shoulders up, pressure behind the eyes, and fear of loud sounds. Tension headaches can be equally debilitating as migraines, and a migraine will often turn into a tension headache, as well as the other way around.
Cluster Headaches
Cluster headaches are acute headaches and often come in half-hour to two-hour "clusters" for around one full day. Some people experience as many as eight clusters within 24 hours. Symptoms include:
- Intense burning pain behind one eye
- Tearing eyes
- A droopy eyelid
- Nasal discharge
- Sensitivity to light/sound
- Agitation
Hemicrania Continua
Hemicrania continua is a type of headache disorder that causes persistent pain that varies in severity but is only felt on one side of the face. It is often felt as mild pain with episodes of severe pain. They have symptoms very much like migraines, but also commonly include a blocked nose, a drooping eyelid, red eyes or tearing, and eye soreness.
Other types of headaches are due to specific events, like an exercose headache after intense physical activity or training, or a caffeine headache from suddenly stopping coffee intake. Other times headaches manifest themselves as symptoms of sinus or allergy issues. While people in St. Francis, MN most often seek chiropractic care for primary headache relief, seeing a chiropractor can be an essential part of complete health that reduces the likelihood and severity of secondary headaches as well.
Why Do I Keep Getting Headaches? | St. Francis, MN Headache Relief
Genetics plays a huge role in migraines and other headaches. Lifestyle factors like excessive physical exercise, not sleeping enough, posture, and not eating well can cause headaches to occur more frequently and be more severe. Outside elements like specific lights, sounds, odors, emotional or mental tension, a whiplash injury from an auto wreck, and even sudden changes in air pressure can also be common culprits.
In contemporary society, most St. Francis, MN residents are more sedentary than their predecessors. A lot of us have to sit in a chair for long periods for our job, pointing our necks down to look at a phone, laying down to watch TV, or otherwise keeping our bodies in unhealthy positions. We're bombarded with screens and other electronic instruments that can act as stressors that cause headaches.
But what does that do to our bodies internally to cause a headache? A sedentary lifestyle, and outside stressors cause increased tension in the joints and soft tissue of the neck, shoulders, and upper back, and can cause our spine to be misaligned. Joints that can go out of alignment are the C1 and C2 vertebrae, the the two joints connecting the neck to the skull. That irritation leads to cervicogenic headaches that affect the nerves that run through the base of your head, your temples, and behind your eyes, causing pain and leading you to search for headache relief.
How a St. Francis, MN Attorney Can Help With Headache Relief
As headaches are a dysfunction of the nervous system, chiropractic care can provide headache relief by restoring normal function of your nervous system. Medications are the first thing many people in St. Francis, MN go to for headache relief, but in fact using too much medication to treat headaches can lead to medication overuse headaches.
More and more people are instead turning to chiropractic care for their headache relief. One survey found that headache disorders are the third most common reason people seekout a chiropractor. Our St. Francis, MN chiropractic clinic can help you find enduring headache relief through the following steps:
- Your first visit— At your first appointment, we'll carefully examine the very top of your neck and perform an X-ray to rule out other potential causes of your headaches and check for possible complications.
- Chiropractic adjustment — A spinal manipulation is the main technique of any chiropractor in St. Francis, MN. If we find an adjustment is safe for you, our professional chiropractor will manipulate your spine's alignment with their hands and small instruments in order to correct your alignment, improve your body's physical function, and alleviate any issues in your nervous system that we can.
- Message Therapy — A message of the upper portion of your body will further help provide headache relief and smooth out any damaged soft tissue. Massage therapy also alleviates headaches by releasing dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin to reduce tension.
- Patient Instruction — Chiropractors are trained to find the causes of headaches, and not just in your joints. We'll offer you lifestyle tips to use when you're not in our clinic, such as eating healthier, improved posture, safe exercise you can do to increase mobility and strengthen certain muscles, and teach you healthy ergonomics.
There's a reason we call ourselves Total Spine Health & Injury Center. We have a variety of techniques to get you living your best life.
Other conditions we treat in St. Francis, MN include:
- Herniated Disc Treatment
- Work Injury Treatment
- Family Chiropractic
- Massage Therapy
- Auto Accident Chiropractors Near Me
- Chiropractor
- Chiropractic Adjustment
- Whiplash Treatment
- Migraine Treatment
St. Francis, MN Headache Relief | Total Spine Health & Injury Center
Often, it's hard to know how good you are really capable of feeling until receiving the benefit of chiropractic treatment in St. Francis, MN. We take a comprehensive view of headache relief so that you do not have to live with constant pain. If you're seeking lasting headache relief in St. Francis, MN, or believe a chiropractor may be able to help you in other ways, give us a call today at (763) 568-7869 or schedule an appointment online.