Headaches are one of the most common ways Australians experience pain, but not everyone understands the reasons behind why they experience headaches. There are multiple causes for headaches that cause you to have pain in different locations. Some of these include muscle tension in the neck and shoulders, poor posture when doing work at a computer or at your desk, stress and restriction in the range of motion in the joints in the upper neck.

Understanding the difference between types of headaches and where they cause pain is important so you know how to correctly manage them. 

Headaches that you feel at the top of your neck and wrap around to forehead and temple area, these often have jaw pain associated with the headache. These are called Cervicogenic Headaches and are caused by muscle tightness and restriction of joints in the upper neck. 

If you experience headaches that feel like a band of pressure across your forehead, this is likely a tension type headache, these are caused by muscle tightness in the neck and upper back muscles. This can be the result of a wide range of things including poor posture, sitting for extended periods of time or stress.

Both of these types of headaches can all be treated using osteopathic techniques to both reduce the symptoms you are experiencing and to address the cause of the headache as well. Osteopathic treatment can also be beneficial for types of headaches that are not directly caused by muscle tightness or joint restriction, such as migraines by addressing the symptoms.

An osteopathic appointment for your headache will start with a conversation about where and how often you experience your pain and how long you have been experiencing the pain to determine what the cause might be and the best way for us to address it. We would then move into assessment to find any muscle tightness or restriction in the joints that could be influencing your headache. Next we would move onto treatment to address our findings from assessment. After treatment, we would talk about some exercises and stretches for you to do to minimise the chance of the headaches occurring again.