Headaches affect 99% of people at some point in their life, and chronic, debilitating headaches affect 62% of people.  Therefore, headaches everyday are a common complaint in our clinic. In order to properly diagnose and treat a headache, it is obviously important to understand the mechanism of a headache.  

Essentially, the pain noted with a headache is due to swelling, expanding, or dilation of a blood vessel in the brain.  When the vessels expand, they irritate nerves surrounding the vessels, which are transmitted and interpreted by the brain as pain.  However, the cause of vessel expansion is the most important variable that must be discovered to treat a headache.  

First of all, there is one very important thing to remember.  The majority of headaches have at least two triggers, if not more.  Triggers that directly or indirectly lead to the dilation of the vessels in the brain.  The more common triggers include; allergic response, spinal tension, hormone fluctuation, nutrition, temperature, and blood flow and viscosity.  Like I stated earlier, the majority of headaches have at least two triggers.  For example, a female may be experiencing cervical spine tension, and not have a headache.  However, once her hormones begin the increase due to her monthly cycle, hormonal headaches are triggered.  Another example would be if a person is having an allergic response to pollen, but has no headache until they become dehydrated and the viscosity of the blood increases, causing an allergy headache.  

The most common contributing factor to headaches is spinal tension.  I am not saying that most people with spinal tension will have headaches.  I am just saying that the majority of people with headaches have spinal tension as a contributing factor.  I have noticed through my experience that by removing one or more of the contributing factors, the frequency and intensity of headaches can be drastically reduced.  Since most headaches have spinal tension as a contributing factor, if this spinal tension can be resolved, the headache symptoms will decrease, even if there is another contributing factor like hormones or allergic response.  

Therefore, to properly treat headache symptoms, the triggers or contributing factors must be determined, and at least one of them eliminated. Headaches everyday, whether they be hormonal headaches, an allergy headache, or a headache caused by any number of other reasons, require getting to the root of the cause, and treating it.