Headache and Migraine Relief at Momentum Health Center

It starts at the base of your skull. By the afternoon it is behind your eye. You take something, it takes the edge off, and tomorrow it is back. You keep tablets in the car, at your desk and in your bag, and you have quietly stopped making firm plans.

Here is what most people are never told. The top three levels of your neck share a nerve line with the side of your head and behind your eye. When those levels stop moving properly, your body can register it up there rather than down here. So you keep treating your head while the neck is where it came from. At Momentum Health Center in Arlington Heights we check how the top of your neck moves, ask what sets your headaches off and what settles them, and tell you what we find. Some headaches are not ours to treat, and if yours is one of them we will say so and help you find the right person.

Common Causes of Headaches and Migraines

Headaches have several common drivers, and chiropractic care is relevant to some of them:

• Upper Cervical Restriction: When the top segments of the neck stop moving well, pain can refer into the head and behind the eye.
• Forward Head Posture: Screen posture loads the muscles at the base of the skull for hours at a time.
• Muscle Tension: Sustained tightness across the shoulders and jaw is a frequent contributor to tension headaches.
• Old Neck Trauma: A whiplash injury can leave a restriction that shows up later as recurring headaches.
• Jaw and TMJ Loading: Clenching changes how the jaw and upper neck share load.
• Sleep and Hydration Patterns: Poor sleep position and dehydration lower the threshold at which a headache starts.

Symptoms Related to Headaches and Migraines

Patterns worth paying attention to include:

• Pain that begins at the base of the skull and travels upward
• Pressure behind one eye by the middle of the day
• Headaches that follow long stretches at a screen
• Neck stiffness that arrives with, or just before, the headache
• Light or sound sensitivity during an episode

If you are reaching for something several times a week, it is worth having your neck examined, because that is the one place most headache sufferers have never had checked.

Services We Provide for Headache and Migraine Relief

Care is matched to what the exam shows and may include:

• Chiropractic Care and Corrective Adjustments
• Chiropractic BioPhysics for postural correction
• Acupuncture
• Soft Tissue Therapy with Graston and A.R.T.
• Functional and Integrative Medicine