All You Need to Know About Migraines and Headaches
Migraines and headaches are the most debilitating thing to experience and forces you to stop everything that you do right there and then. It could possibly stop you from doing the most essential activities like driving out or even getting groceries or making food. There are many reasons behind migraines and headaches and many individuals has tried from painkillers to massages and acupuncture.
Yes, some do help but how about the rest that do not find relief from all these alternatives?
First we have to understand what is Migraine? And what is headaches? Let us break it down for you!
Migraines
Migraines usually affect the age group from 12 to 40 and it gets more common when individuals get older. Believe it or not that it affects more females. But most of the time when we think that one sided headaches are usually migraines. But sometimes with some proper diagnosis from the doctors, we would realize that it might not be migraine but instead it could be a cervicogenic headache. Hence, getting the right diagnosis is very crucial.
For Migraines, symptoms other than a throbbing headache like dizziness, sensitive to light/noise, nausea and sometimes would experience something called Aura which is visual disturbance as well.
Migraines can last from 4 hours up to 72 hours. Usually migraines occurs one sided and are being set off by a trigger. The trigger can be through smell or food or even stress. Hence figuring out what are your stressors or triggers would help you to manage your condition and symptoms as well.
Other than that, menstruation could potentially cause your migraines to be worse. This is because of the hormonal changes that occurs in your body that would set the chemicals off for pain signals. Hence, it is quite common for women to experience migraines during menstruation.
Cervicogenic Headache
Cervicogenic headaches are so common that almost half of the population has it and are usually being set off due to the muscles and joints not being able to function correctly that causes inflammation, muscle tension and radiation.
Headaches of such tend to last between 3 hours to a week, recurring at intervals varying between as little as 2 days to as long as 3 months. Cervicogenic headache can start from the base of your skull. Cervicogenic headaches are considered mechanical in nature.
Medications are able to control the pain but when you do not fix the source of the problem which is your neck joints and the muscles that are surrounding your neck. Especially when the source is mechanical in nature, keeping a good posture or ergonomics during work or studies is crucial as we spend so many hours in front of the computer without rest and without us knowing, that we are already sitting for many hours.
There are many ways of treating this condition in which we will discuss later in this post, but knowing what are the source of your problem is the key to an effective treatment.
TREATMENTS
You may be thinking of how and what are the cures for both migraines and cervicogenic headache.
Treatment for both migraine and cervicogenic headache would be quite similar but one main thing to take away for individuals who are suffering with migraine is that they would need to know what are the triggers that trigger their migraines such has stress, lack of sleep or fatigue, alcohol, food triggers (including but not limited to chocolate, fried foods, diary products and nitrates including those in cured meats and fish ). Keeping a food diary and a headache diary would be very beneficial.
Other than that, treatments like chiropractic joint manipulation, rehabilitation, dry needling and also therapeutic modalities would help with the better movement of the joints and also the muscles, to help to bring down the inflammation as well. Most importantly, to have a headache diary so that you are able to share it with your practitioner so that he/she is able to advice or diagnose you properly. Other than that, keeping an active lifestyle is crucial as motion is lotion!
Treatment at home involves you to keep vigilant of your posture at home or in the office, do not keep stationary in front of the computer for long hours and make sure to stretch in between work to avoid getting neck and back pain. This would greatly help with individuals who has cervicogenic headache.
Other than that, to take note of what triggers your migraines would help prevent your next episode of migraines. Over the counter medications do help with these conditions very well. However, using these medications would not treat the problem but to mask the problem. If the issue is from the neck, the neck condition should be treated so that the cervicogenic headache would be resolved.
And if the issue is from the foods that you take that is causing you to experience migraines, then a change in lifestyle and also the foods that you intake should be modified to
Do not let pain rule your life, get to the bottom of your pain and rule it!
Treatment Cost
Cost of treatment for migraines or headaches at TAGS starts from RM120/session (ala-carte). Of course, the treatment cost would have to be considered in the treatment plan – what treatment is being done, and how many sessions are needed. This depends on the severity of your condition.
How to get treatment for Migraines or Headaches
To help stop your migraine or headaches, you may start by reaching out to us at:
Phone : +60 12-217 3788
Email : info@tonikasia.com
We understand that migraines and headaches can be debilitating and potentially cause you to not able to do what you love. Pain is so common but never normal. Come in and get checked! Our doors are open 7 days a week!
References
- https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1142556-overview
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025619611605624
- https://migraine.com/migraine-types/migraine-with-aura
- https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Clinical-assessment-of-patients-with-cervicogenic-a-Hong-Lai/1a8b00271ae1c3faeaa8bc29920343d1088a25aa?p2df
- https://europepmc.org/article/med/9200048
