One of the main presentations I see in clinic are headaches. Osteopathic treatment can be a great way to help to alleviate your symptoms but I always like to give some self management strategies to patients to help themselves. The best approach is helping yourself along with our hands on treatment and not only relying on just an osteopath to help. It is a team effort.
Strategies to help your headache symptoms:
Hyrdate - dehydration can be a big contributor of headache symptoms. Increasing your water intake can also help with muscle tension and muscle performance.
Stretching - there are quite a few muscle groups that attach to the skull that can be causing headache signs and symptoms. Creating length and reducing tension in these muscles can help to alleviate some of these symptoms.
Appropriate desk set up - poor desk set up can cause fatigue in our postural muscles. Refer to previous blog post to help set up your desk appropriately.
Sleep and pillow - getting adequate rest to allow your body to recover from our busy lifestyles. While sleeping it is also important to support your neck curvature and not put it in extra strain. Pillow positioning is important during sleep. Keeping your neck in a neutral spine position, avoid shoulders sitting up on pillow as well causing you to roll shoulders forward and also making sure the pillow is not too high or too low.
Clenching and grinding - this can be a massive aggravating factor for causing headaches. Self massage around the area, stress management and being aware of clenching can help to alleviate some of this tension. A dentist moulded splint is also a good option that can not only protect your teeth but limited to amount of muscle activation through the TMJ.
Magnesium - supplements can be a great way to help aid your body in helping it work to its best. Why I suggest magnesium is because it supports energy levels, relieves tiredness and fatigue and aids in the relief of muscular cramps and mild spasms associated with inadequate magnesium intake.
Headaches can be a caused by a number of things so osteopathic treatment and/or speaking to your health professional about your sign and symptoms is very important and advised. I always suggest seeking advice about your own specific pain whether that be your general practitioner, allied health professional or pharmacist and they can direct you in the right and appropriate treatment options.
Our osteoapth's would love to help and guide you in helping your headaches and working our your source of pain and how we can help with your aggravating symptoms.