Headaches

Headaches are one of the most common afflictions that are experienced daily in our society.  Headaches affect people of all ages and does not discriminate with gender or background.  However, did you know that most headaches are related to tension or muscle tightness in your neck?  We often refer to these types of headaches as cervicogenic tension headaches.  The positive side to this is that Physical Therapy can help!

Your neck’s most important responsibility is to hold your head up on top of the cervical spine and maintain the appropriate positions.  It does this through an intricate array of muscles that originate from the cervical spine, clavicle (collarbone), and scapula (shoulder blade) and attach to various points on the skull.  These muscles work in synchrony to hold and move your head in various planes and ranges smoothly.

However, sometimes the balance of these muscles gets thrown off, typically due to postural overuse.  This occurs when chronic poor (forward) posture develops due to working in front of a computer or sitting at a desk for prolonged periods of time every day.  The tendency is for the muscles in the front of the neck and shoulders to shorten while the muscles in the back of the neck and shoulders become elongated and concurrently weaker.  This results in a “forward head” which creates chronic and constant tension on the muscles in the back of the neck presenting as dull achy pain in the upper neck that radiates up into the head creating the Headache!