What’s the difference between a headache and a migraine?

A headache is irritation of the trigeminal nerve network that covers your entire head and face. This includes the base of your skull, back of your head, top of your head, temples, ears (fullness, pressure, pain, ringing), jaws (tightness, from the motor, or muscle innervation of that same nerve), forehead, eyes, sinuses, and teeth. Any or all of those areas can be involved with the trigeminal nerve. That would be called a headache. The most common headache symptom associated wiwith the trigeminal nerve is sinus pressure and/or nose stuffiness.

Video of the Month

Our “Anatomy of a Headache” video is now available on our website! It explains how your neck causes head and facial symptoms. Dr. Turner rips through it a bit fast, but we think you’ll get the idea. We hope you and other headache sufferers you know find it helpful! Click here or click the image below to view this video.

It’s Afternoon: Had Enough of Your Eight-Pound Head?

Here’s how most of our patients fix this problem:

• Unload (lie down for ten minutes every chance you get after work and on off-days).  That gets the weight of your head off of inflamed tissues much like sitting down gets your body weight off of an inflamed knee. As your neck heals over time, it can tolerate longer and longer periods without your having to lie down.
• Repeated movements in a pain-free zone. Joints receive circulation through movement. Leave your joints still and inflammation just sits there. Most patients do the three movements listed below twice per day, 50 times each. Yes, that’s 100 repetitions of each per day! And most work up to 200 repetitions per day—if their neck will tolerate it. It’s key that you stay in a pain-free zone of movement, meaning no pinch or pull anywhere while doing them. Shoot for doing this regimen for eight weeks to give your neck time to heal. Here are the movements that should target all of the joints up and down your neck:

1. Rotation (moving head from left to right, like shaking your head “No”)
2. Slight chin up/down movement (like nodding your head “Yes”)
3. Jutting chin out (we call it “the chicken movement”)—like the movement you do when smelling a flower. I’d skip this last movement if you have a history of disc problems in your neck that worsen when you look down.

• Consistently relax your neck and upper shoulder (“trap”) muscles. This is best accomplished with 15 minutes of focused breathing (“diaphragmatic breathing”/“soft belly”) to calm down your central nervous system.
• Fix your posture. Try sitting up straighter, perhaps putting something behind your back to push it forward in your car and at work and home—a towel roll, throw pillow, etc. The idea is to keep your eight-pound head over your center of gravity so that your neck structures can support it without excess muscle activity. When your head glides out forward of your body (which happens when you sit in the shape of the letter “C”), the muscles have to work overtime to hold it out there in space.
• Nutritional supplements. Give glucosamine a try, if you’re not allergic to it. Wal-Mart sells a gel-coated version by Schiff that’s relatively inexpensive and goes down easier than the “swallowing chalk” versions out there. Shoot for 2000 mg/day and give it at least a full eight-week trial. You’re trying to repair joint damage that’s likely been sitting stagnant for years.

The Recliner Taboo

If looking down for sustained periods bothers you and aggravates your symptoms, stay away from recliners! In order to look at a TV, read, talk to anyone (or do anything functional) in a recliner, your chin drops down toward your chest.  We find this is commonly overlooked and it’s brutal on a person’s head and face symptoms. Try the couch with something stuffed behind your back (like a throw pillow). Even try sitting on a throw pillow, because it lifts your hips up higher, which straightens your spine out more.  Just picture that if you’re sitting really low, your spine is pulled into the letter “C,” which puts your head in a really funky position.

Quick Summary of Common Headache Causes and Solutions

Our consistent experience is that nearly all head and neck pain and associated symptoms are due to a problem in the upper neck, near the base of the skull. Common sources of tightness there include disc problems in the lower neck, neck arthritis, stress, or neck trauma (like a car accident or fall—even as a child). In addition, we routinely find that ear fullness, pressure or ringing, eye pain or dryness, sound, light, and smell sensitivities, dizziness or vertigo and nausea all stem from problems in this area.

TIP:
Because the upper neck is so vulnerable to irritation from these problems, it’s wise to avoid looking down for sustained periods.

• Raise computer monitors and reading surfaces
• Don’t read while lying down on your back
• Avoid sinking into furniture (sofas, recliners, computer chairs, etc.) and letting your chin drop toward your chest
• Avoid sleeping with your head tilted down in a fetal position

Dropping your chin down pulls on tiny muscles, which then yank on the nerves that run through those muscles. When you yank on nerves, you get pain in the areas that those nerves supply! Since those nerves connect with all sorts of other nerves, this explains how looking down can affect many different areas, including your head, face, ears, eyes, cheeks, teeth and even your stomach (nausea, reflux).  Be careful when sleeping not to drop your chin down—or you’ll regret it in the morning!

For more information on how these triggers cause pain and a wide range of symptoms, check out this page on our web site: Where is My Problem Coming From?