What your headache is telling you
Headaches can mean all sorts of different things.
Here’s a basic breakdown of what different pain patterns across your head can mean.
Pain creeping up the back of the skull across the top:
This is a classic tension headache. Usually, this is the result of muscles that are overworking. If the pain reaches as far as your eyes, the muscles need some treatment asap - get yourself into the Osteopath, and in the meantime get heat on the back of your neck, via a hot shower, a heat pack or a muscle rub such as tiger balm. If you ignore it until it goes away, or just take painkillers and continue with whichever activity you were doing when it started, you may find the tension creeps beyond your neck and skull, and starts messing with the muscles that help you breathe too. When you start altering your breathing mechanics, the knock-on effects for the rest of your body are huge, as you change your posture and availability of oxygen through the efficiency of your breathing.
Pain that sits behind your eyes:
Pain that seems to sit behind your eyeball and spread out around them may be eye strain, sinus issues or a positional problem with your sphenoid bone, which is a butterfly-shaped bone that forms a big part of your eye sockets.
Your sphenoid bone can be pushed out of alignment through direct head trauma, previous concussions, childbirth, hormonal cycles, wearing the wrong prescription glasses, stress, or even a problem with the bone it connects to in your pelvis via the covering of your spinal cord. Through some detective work and treatment of the cause, I can use a mix of Cranial Osteopathy and traditional Osteopathic techniques to unwind the issue and bring the sphenoid bone back into alignment.
Sinus issues can usually be treated with some lymphatic drainage, and cranial treatment of the bones that form the sinuses. Eye strains can be a little more complicated, and sometimes may need a trip to the optometrist if you should really be wearing glasses or need a new prescription.
Pain that seems to radiate from your neck or jaw:
A cervicogenic headache is caused by irritation of the joints in your neck, and can sometimes lead to problems in your jaw too. Jaw issues by themselves can lead to a headache, often as the result of asymmetrical jaw position, jaw clenching or grinding, recent dental work, or an old injury that is now showing itself after years of causing altered chewing mechanics.
An irritated facet joint in your neck can cause referral pain into the head. The facet joints are very small but very important joints for guiding movement. Because of their importance in precise neck movements, the facet joints have lots of nerve endings in them, so when they’re inflamed, you know about it, through direct pain in the neck or a sore, heavy head.
This is just a small snapshot into some of the most common types of headaches. Migraines are a whole other kettle of fish, and need a dedicated article to themselves.
Headaches are complicated, and can be caused by a variety of physical, chemical and emotional factors. Whether the pain is sharp or dull, sudden or ongoing, pressure pain or pulling pain, if it’s affecting your vision, hearing or balance, and the time of day the headache comes on, can all help me figure out the causes and solutions to your headache.
