Headaches May Be Coming From Your Neck
Hello, everybody. Dr. Joe Singh here. Today, we’re going to be talking about why we take X-rays for your headaches.
After we do a thorough, complete history, consultation, goals, and examination of what’s causing your headaches, the next thing we do is take X-rays. X-rays are very important to your care and how we take care of you.
Most people don’t realize that most headaches are not coming from inside their head. They’re typically coming from their neck. An X-ray is going to tell us exactly what’s going on in that neck to determine how we can take care of you.
Looking for Subluxations
We are looking for these things called subluxations. These subluxations are misaligned vertebrae in the spine that are either pinching on the nerve or the artery, or they involve some form of structural misalignment putting pressure on the cord. That is creating dysfunction and creating a symptom, such as a headache, into the head.
When we look at an X-ray, it tells us a lot of things. An X-ray will tell us exactly where these subluxations are, how long they’ve been there, whether we can fix them, and how long it’s going to take us.
What We Look for on an X-Ray
There are several big things we look at on an X-ray, including ruling out any kind of pathology or serious things that may be going on in the neck.
First, we want to look for those subluxations. That first area is here in the upper part of the neck, at your skull—the C1 and C2 area. That’s where your brainstem goes through, and a lot of misalignments will happen in that region.
Typically, this can be due to forward head posture, sitting at a computer all day, reading, poor posture, trauma, past traumas, or an accumulation of things that happen over time. Eventually, this starts to change our posture and push our head into a forward position, with extension of our skull and atlas, which then starts to compress this area here.
When we look at that area, that’s one of the main areas we look at.
We also look to make sure there are no bony structures, degeneration, or arthritis in the joints that may hinder us from or contraindicate us from adjusting it.
The third thing we look at is the disc spaces, making sure they’re nice and full so those nerves open up and can communicate with the rest of the body.
Determining How Long the Problem Has Been There
When we find those subluxations, how badly those bones are misaligned and degenerating gives us an idea of how long they’ve been there.
Then, what we also do is test to see how much we can correct it. Can we make any positive improvement to that structure to see how we can help you?
Seeing Is Knowing
X-rays are very important because seeing is knowing. We never want to guess about what’s going on with you. We want to know exactly what’s going on, get to the root cause, and figure out what’s causing these headaches.
If you’re interested in getting your spine evaluated, or if you’ve never had your spine evaluated, the best time to do it is now. Let’s take care of those headaches, and let’s see how we can help you.
Thanks for watching this video.
