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over the last few decades – there is still a lot we
HITTING THE NAIL
ON THE HEADache
BY RIA SANDENBERGH PHYSIOTHERAPISTS
Headaches are horrible no matter the lobally it is experienced by millions of
intensity... and they can be a real pain
in the neck. The migraine that keeps you
in bed might be more painful than the as 50%. In developed countries up to 1 adult in 20
has a headache every – or nearly every day.
subtle irritation behind your eyes, but
both have a crippling effect on your day.
It affects everything – from your mood to
your work. understanding of headaches has grown a lot
This diagram shows the most common referral patterns for the mentioned headaches.
26 Cornwall View • Issue 5 2019
don’t know.
The funny thing is most people can describe
their headache pain in detail - even when they
don’t really have one… Who has not at some
point uttered the dreaded ‘my head feels like it
is exploding ‘ sentence?
So, let’s try and simplify it.
Headaches are classified into 2 categories –
Primary and Secondary.
Primary headaches are not related to any other
condition and they include migraine, tension-
type and cluster headaches. With tension-type
headaches being the most common.
The other category of headaches are Secondary
headaches - they are caused by underlying
conditions. The list of conditions is very long, but
the most common cause is medication-overuse
headache. Three other culprits that I also want
to mention that we often see in clinical practise
are neck (cervicogenic), TMJ (jaw joint) and sinus
headaches.
As humans our classic response to a headache
is to drink medication, and although in theory
it’s not wrong to numb the pain – this very
seldom deals with the root of the problem.
The good news is that you can add
physiotherapy to your headache conquering
arsenal. Physiotherapy has been proven to
decrease or resolve the intensity, frequency,
and duration of headache and to decrease
medication use in regards to headaches. 2
We do this mainly through MANUAL THERAPY,
EXERCISES AND EDUCATION.
MANUAL THERAPY
joint and muscle stiffness, increase mobility of
Hands-on techniques are designed to alleviate
the neck, decrease muscle tension and spasms,
and improve muscle performance.
EXERCISES
It might sound out of place, but specific
exercises have been proven to decrease pain,
improve endurance, decrease inflammation,
and promote overall healing. By activating and
people, with the statistics telling us that strengthening your postural muscles we are
Gthe prevalence among adults is as high equipping your body to stabilise your head.
This in turns decreases tension and stiffness
around the neck, which will decrease the
1
intensity of most headaches.
Headaches have in general held on to their
mysterious nature, because even though our EDUCATION
Educational strategies have been found helpful
at lessening severity and/or frequency of
headaches. These strategies include identifying
highly individualised triggers (i.e., dietary,
sleep, movement/postural habits, stressors,
hydration).
Next time, before you have to fill up another
bottle of pain killers – consider going to your
local physio – they might just hit the nail on the
headache.
1,2 For a list of references, please email:
info@physiofi rst.co.za.