If you get headaches regularly and you’re not finding relief from attempts to keep them at bay, it’s probably time to look beyond just your head, and focus lower down into your neck and shoulders at the potential culprit. Quite often, headaches are a direct result of neck and shoulder problems.
Each vertebra in the neck has a small hole on either side that allows nerves and blood vessels to travel up into the head. There’s not much excess room within those holes so when those vertebrae get out of alignment, often due to poor posture and positioning, this can cause pressure to be placed on those nerves and blood vessels. This can lead to sharp pain, dull aching, and restricted blood flow through one side of the head and into the face and eye area.
Additionally, the muscles in your upper back connect to the base of your skull. When they become tight, they can pull on the structures of your neck causing compression and headaches as well. We often see office workers suffer from this pain pattern as they tend to hold the same forward head posture for long periods of time. For example, the trapezius muscle starts at the base of the skull, extends through the neck vertebrae, over to the top of the shoulder, and then all the way down to the bottom of your thoracic spine (mid-back). Those times when you find your shoulders being held much higher than necessary when you’re tense from stress, the cold, or just as a habitual position, that tension can pull on the base of your skull, pushing you into that forward head position where your shoulders round, your neck seems to sink down in between them, and your jaw pushes forward. All that tension then puts pressure on underlying nerves and blood vessels, leading to pain and dysfunction throughout the head and face.
While there are several different ways your headaches could be caused by something going a little wrong in the neck and shoulders, it’s often difficult to determine the specific cause without a bit more information. Everyone holds their body in slightly different ways and develops individual movement and postural patterns. That’s why a thorough assessment is necessary. And that’s just what we’ll do when you come in for a session here at Bea’s Sports Injury Clinic. Our expert professionals and a variety of techniques are sure to find the answers and direct you to the right treatment for your headaches.