Why Neck pain is the #1 associated feature of headaches and migraines?

Neck pain is the number one associated feature when it comes time for headaches and migraines, leading a lot of people to be suspicious as to whether their neck is actually causing their headaches and migraines. And they would be right. The neck is actually one of the number one causes of headaches and migraines out there.

 

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What are the joints that are involved in creating headaches and migraines? How does it actually cause headaches and migraines? How do they become dysfunctional in the first place? And most importantly, what can be done to help these joints to decrease your headaches? 

Hi, I'm Dr. Beth.  Osteopath here at Melbourne Headache Solutions.

Neck pain is really, really, really, really, really common when it comes time for headaches and migraines, and a lot of people experience it. And even if you don't, it doesn't mean that your neck isn't dysfunctional. 

So, what joints are we talking about when it comes time for headaches and migraines? 

The joints that we're talking about when we're talking about chronic headaches and migraines are C1, C2, and C3. So, we have the base of our skull here and then we've got C1, C2, and C3. Okay. The rest of the neck is very important and we need a very healthy neck when it comes time for headaches and migraines, but they're not actually the headache and migraine producing joints.

C1, C2, and C3 are the headache and migraine producing joints. Okay. The rest of the spine provides a base of support, but then we've got our C1, C2, and C3, which I have said, are our headache and migraine producing joints. Of course, we've got muscles around there. We've got musculature that can contribute to headaches and migraines, but it doesn't actually create headaches and migraines. We've got discs as well, but that doesn't create headaches and migraines. But it all contributes to the health of our neck. 

With this, how does it actually create headaches and migraines? 

Well, when the joints become dysfunctional and they rotate in a certain way, they can get stuck and they can get stuck in this position after things like trauma, whiplashes, car crashes, and concussions. Also, bad posture like a forward-head posture, sitting at computers for long periods of time, study postures, looking down for long periods of time, looking on our phones, iPads, laptops, books, all those sorts of things, which we're all guilty of.

Then, our neck can get into a dysfunctional position. It can get stuck. The joints can get stuck. This means that they’re then constantly sending pain signals up to an area of our brain called the brainstem. Now the lower part of our brainstem actually sits in this area of our neck. It actually sits in the top area of our neck, just down here.

The brainstem is actually the underlying cause of headaches and migraines. And when it comes time for migraines, the brainstem gives us the associated features of migraine. Things like dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and light sound and smell sensitivity through there. So because of the relationship between the upper part of the neck and the brainstem, then when we've got dysfunctions in the upper part of the neck, that's when we get these chronic headaches and migraines. We get them coming back again and again, and again, and again.

If you got these dysfunctions in your neck, lower down, or if you've got them in your upper back, or if you've got them in your lower back, you would just get back pain. You would just get neck pain. But because you get it in this upper part of your neck here, because of that association, between the brainstem and that part of your neck, that's why you get a referral pattern into your head. So you get the headache, you get the pain and you get the associated features of a migraine. Again, that dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and so forth. Okay. That's why you get a headache and migraine coming from your neck. 

How do you get these dysfunctions? Well, I already said that we get them through things like trauma, postures, bad sleeping postures and terrible pillows. There are so many people who have pillows that are too low for them. We need to have pillows that fill the gap if you're a side sleeper -that fill the gap between our shoulder and neck or the shoulder and our head so our head isn't dropping down. I don't see too many people that have pillows that are too high for them so pushing their head up. But I do see so many people that have pillows that are too low and their head is sinking down. 

You should never sleep on your tummy because when you sleep on your tummy, you're putting your head in a very awkward position. You're putting the weight down and this creates all sorts of neck dysfunctions as well.

Sleeping on your back is good. But again, you've got to make sure that you have an appropriately heightened pillow and often again, it's too low. So make sure that you've got a good pillow there for good posture. These are the most common ways that we create dysfunctions through our neck -posture and also through our sleeping posture as well. So that's how we get the dysfunctions. 

How do we help improve these dysfunctions in our neck to help decrease our headaches migraines? 

Well, we can do neck-specific exercises. So doing a range of motion exercises. Nice big neck circles, looking from side to side.

Make sure that we’re staying active physically as well -doing lots of physical exercises. So doing running, doing walking, going to the gym, doing yoga and Pilates and swimming and doing those sorts of things, but making sure that we're not inducing a bias. If you're a swimmer and you're doing freestyle, don't always look to the same side or else you'll induce a bias. You'll induce dysfunction in your neck. Make sure that you're looking to both sides. Also, make sure that you're not doing anything that's going to encourage dysfunctions in your neck. Make sure that you've got a good ergonomic set-up at work -that you're not always looking down at things. Make sure that they come up in front of you so that we're not creating dysfunctions in your neck.

Make sure that you've got good seated posture and standing posture so that your head isn't poking forwards and encouraging dysfunctions in through the neck. Make sure that you've got a nice elongated neck and elongated spine. So that we’re not again encouraging these headaches and these migraines to come back again and again, and again and again, because we want them gone. We want them to go away. We don't want them to stay put. We want them to disappear. 

Remember that staying put, staying stagnant in any one position is also going to encourage your headaches and your migraines to come back. So if you're a desk worker, if you stayed put in any one position for too long, then that is also going to increase your headaches and migraines to come back. Make sure that you take regular breaks. Get up, go for a little bit of a walk, go and get a cup of tea. Go and get a glass of water. Encourage your body to move. Our bodies were designed to move so this will also help decrease your headaches and migraines. 

The other thing is that if you've got chronic headaches and migraines, then you want to make sure that you're being assessed, diagnosed and treated by someone with advanced training in the field of headaches and migraines like our practitioners here at Melbourne Headache Solutions so that you can get those long-term results for your headaches and migraines that you're after.

If you've been suffering from chronic headaches and migraines, please feel free to reach out to us here at Melbourne Headache Solutions. We are very passionate about treating headaches and migraines -that's what we're all about. We hate seeing people in pain. We love seeing long-term results in people. So, if you've got any questions or queries drop them below or feel free to get into contact with us by calling us at our clinic, and I would love to hear from you.

And if you've got anything that you need any help with at all, please feel free to contact us at any stage. I hope that you found this helpful and that this has cleared up any questions that you've got in regards to your neck and your headaches and migraines. I hope to keep in touch with you soon.

Call reception on (03) 9486 7543 to book in with one of our practitioners today to see how we can help you.