What the hell is going on with these millions of people struggling with migraines?!
Seems like more and more children, teenagers, and adults are being diagnosed with migraine and having to suffer the consequences from that. That really pisses me off since there is a solution to this problem.
I was a kid that dealt with weekly headaches. Sure they weren’t full fledged migraines but I have no doubt that if I wouldn’t have gotten them taken care of as a teenager I would have migraines at this point in my life. I thought having headaches was totally normal, I thought everyone dealt with them. I thought this because of all the commercials I would see on TV, hear on the radio, read on billboards and magazines…big pharma does a great job at making people think that having some sort of ailment is normal.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Recently I was doing some research for another blog I wrote and it came to my attention that most people don’t know this information but also most doctors don’t even know this information. I think that can be due to the fact that everyone thinks a little bit differently. I personally feel that a lot of times I’m on an island with only a few others who also think the way I do!
What I’m talking about is why migraines exist and why only some people experience migraines!
WHAT THEY TELL YOU
If you google the phrase “what causes migraines” you’ll get a list like this:
Lack of sleep
Alcohol
Stress
Weather changes
Caffeine
Certain foods
Hormones
Skipped meals
Chocolate
Emotional triggers
Medication
Missing meals
Aged cheeses
Bright or flashing lights
Changes in barometric pressure
Fermented or pickled foods
Menstruation
Smoking
Talk about an eyeroll of a situation!
Anyone who struggles with migraines knows what their triggers are…which is what’s listed on google. What isn’t talked about much is the actual reason people get migraines! THEY, the mainstream media, maybe doesn’t even know what causes them in the first place! After all you do have to do a little bit of digging and know the proper searches to use in order to find certain research articles.
Regardless, to me that list above is a total eye roll!
If you ask your doctor why you’re having migraines and this list is essentially the only answer they give you I think it might be time to find a new doctor.
Okay so we got that out of the way…yes those are triggers but they aren’t the true reason why people get migraines.
Let’s Dive In a Bit
In order to understand why migraines take place we need to have a little anatomy lesson. First it’s actually important to know that migraine is a neurological issue…meaning something is going on with the nervous system.
I’ve realized that the term nervous system is something that most people have heard of but don’t truly understand or know what it is. In short, your nervous system is the combination of your brain, brainstem, spinal cord, and all the nerves in your body. It’s basically how your body communicates with itself…it’s like a giant wiring system.
What can happen is that the nervous system can get out of whack, which causes it to not work properly. Essentially this major wiring system within our body isn’t sending and receiving signals how it’s supposed to be. There’s a blown fuse or circuit going on.
Information that’s traveling to the brain isn’t able to get to its final destination properly. Because this is happening the brain isn’t able to respond correctly either.
It would be the same as you having front row seats to your favorite concert. Then when you arrive it’s too busy so you have to watch the concert from outside the stadium. Sure you got to “witness” or “listen” to the concert but in the grand scheme it was a totally different experience than if you were front row singing every word to every song! Your review or rating of the concert is going to be drastically different.
So when information can’t get to the brain how it’s supposed to get there, the review and response of that information by the brain is going to be different!
This might not sound like that big of a deal…and in the grand scheme of things it is quite small when we are comparing it to a lesion in the brain or spinal cord but it can cause MASSIVE problems symptomatically for people.
The nervous system is broken down into a few things, one of them being the autonomic nervous system. That’s what we are going to focus on as that has a huge impact on migraines. This system consists of our fight, flight, or freeze response, along with our resting and digesting response. Both of these systems are vital to our survival as there are times when we need a fight, flight, or freeze response to happen, while most of the time we want ourselves to be in a calming, resting, digesting, restorative state.
Most of the people I see in the office are stuck in this chronic fight or flight situation. This is a problem, as 0% of health and healing occurs in this state. Think about the feeling you have when you experience an adrenaline rush. It can be hard to just think straight when we experience this, let alone hope that our body is performing every function correctly.
When we are in this sympathetic state, the body’s only focus is survival. This is a healthy response when necessary but when it’s constantly ongoing how do you think the function of all the organ systems, immune system, and everything in between is working? That’s right, not the greatest, everything else is in this survival mode as well.
How Migraines Are Linked To The Nervous System
So now we have a small understanding of why the nervous system is important. Well it’s also vitally important when it comes to migraines! Migraines are a neurological issue after all…so why does it seem like no one reallllllyyyyyy dives into nervous system function when it comes to them?
It really comes down to knowing what to look for.
When someone goes to a neurologist it’s not a bad idea, but oftentimes a neurologist is going to be searching for something extreme. Which if you’ve had migraines for years and years that’s understandable.
The problem arises when all of the testing a neurologist does comes back negative. This isn’t really a problem as it usually means that there isn’t something majorly wrong. At the same time, it is a problem because there isn’t a cause for your migraines found yet.
The testing that is being done, in my opinion, isn’t the correct testing.
Sure we are ruling out potential major risks which is necessary but once those are ruled out we need to keep looking.
I believe this is where we come into play. At The Specific Chiropractic Center Naples we focus on nervous system testing and base all of the care we provide around it. We use computerized infrared thermography to determine if there is a nervous system issue going on. Measuring temperature may sound like a funny way to determine if the nervous system is working properly but it’s 100% valid. Medical research tells us that the temperature on one side of the body should be the same as the temperature on the other side of the body. For instance when in a constant environment your right ear should be the same temperature as your left ear.
Now if there is a difference between the two temperatures of 0.3 degrees celsius, that is indicative of neuropathophysiology, aka the nervous system isn’t working correctly. The most common use of thermography for health care right now is for early breast cancer detection. Now in that case it’s not going to diagnose breast cancer but if they are seeing these temperature differences from one side to the other, they recommend that further testing should be done.
For us, if we see that the body is stuck in this pattern of differing temperatures it means that an adjustment is needed. It shows us that the nervous system is working incorrectly and oftentimes causing the migraines and headaches that people are experiencing.
The temperature differences are caused directly by the autonomic nervous system, which is what we were talking about above…remember the fight or flight response, and the rest and digest response?
Well those responses dilate and constrict capillaries, this causes the temperature to increase or decrease on the surface of our skin due to more or less blood flow.
What Does Blood Flow Have To Do With Migraines?!
There is research out there that suggests disrupted blood flow may be a contributing factor to migraines. I know what you’re thinking, then let’s just tackle the blood flow issue and forget about the nervous system, right?!
I mean I do understand that thinking but at the same time it’s not that easy. We need to look at what’s causing the blood flow problem. My goal at The Specific Chiropractic Center Naples is to find the root cause of a problem. Sure addressing blood flow may lead to some relief but overtime the problem will keep on arising, unless we tackle the root cause of why we have a blood flow problem to begin with.
From what I have found the autonomic nervous system is the real culprit to this blood flow issue going on and much more when it comes to migraines.
We can go deeper than this though.
Specifically the Trigeminal Nerve plays a huge role in all of this. The Trigeminal Nerve is Cranial Nerve 5. There are 12 cranial nerves in total. Your cranial nerves are nerve pairs in your brain. They connect your brain to other parts of your face, neck and torso. Cranial nerves can play a role in sensation and movement. If we have an issue with a cranial nerve it can cause a myriad of problems.
The Trigeminal Nerve projects bilaterally (both sides) from the Trigeminal Ganglion. From there it connects the brainstem and supplies various parts of the head and face with feeling. Think of the brainstem as a fuse box and the Trigeminal Nerve as a major wire coming from this fuse box.
The Trigeminal Nerve splits into what’s called the Trigeminovascular System. This is a vascular system (arteries and veins) that are under control of the Trigeminal Nerve. This may not seem like a big deal but in past blogs we have talked about how High Blood Pressure may be linked to Headaches…this can definitely be a correlation. In fact researchers hypothesize that this may be the area that headache and migraine medications target to reduce symptoms.
These medications help stimulate a parasympathetic effect on these arteries and veins…meaning they help dilate these vessels and lower the blood pressure flowing through them!
There is also a layer of connective tissue around the brain that is there for protection but also carries arteries that supply the brain with blood, oxygen, and a system called the cerebrospinal system. This is a fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord along with flushing out any sort of toxins. Think of it as a cushion and filtration system.
This area of the brain is supplied by branches of the Trigeminal Nerve. The branches send their messages to the Trigeminal Nerve and ultimately end up in the brainstem! There is more and more research coming out talking about the vascular system and how it can have a huge impact on headaches and migraine…but what about nausea?
The Trigeminal Nerve and its branches to the brain may be causing nausea too. Researchers are seeing that headaches and nausea are linked by a vicious cycle, almost feeding one another…all from neurovascular irregularities from the Trigeminal Nerve and its branches. This makes complete sense as a lot of people who struggle with migraines have nausea as one of their symptoms as well.
This Can Be Fixed
With it being such a complex and specific problem it might be hard to think that there is something that can fix this other than medications! I’m assuming since you’ve read this far you’re somewhat interested and probably don’t want to be reliant on medications for ever. This pattern and mechanism is actually something that a lot of migraine medications target like we mentioned above. They try to increase the blood flow that is going on in and around the brain by dilating the vessels.
I believe we need to go back to the beginning of this article when we were talking about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system.
We know that the sympathetic nervous system constricts vessels and that the parasympathetic nervous system dilates vessels. With this knowledge I feel like we need to be focusing more on bringing the body into a parasympathetic state. The first order of business in doing this would be to determine if there is an actual autonomic nervous system issue going on. Like we mentioned above we do this at The Specific Chiropractic Center Naples by using computerized infrared thermography.
With a very specific adjustment to one of the top two bones in the neck we can make a massive impact on the autonomic nervous system. What’s really cool about this is that we can actually measure the changes we make as well. We do thermography testing at every single visit to help us determine if the nervous system is working correctly and if an adjustment is needed.
The adjustments that take place at our office are very different compared to what most people think of when it comes to a chiropractic adjustment. There is no twisting or popping of your head or neck. We have a special table that puts the head and neck in a position that allows us to provide the most effective adjustment possible. All of this is done by hand, the adjustment is very fast and doesn’t have much force at all. In the beginning many people I think are skeptical that what we do will even have an impact but once they start noticing changes in their migraines that thinking goes out the door.
If you’re someone who struggles with migraines you’re going to appreciate the approach we take when it comes to the adjustment. A lot of the migraine sufferers I have taken care of have sensitive bodies and when they have had traditional chiropractic adjustments in the past it is usually really painful and uncomfortable for them.
In order to figure out what bone needs to be adjusted and how the adjustment needs to be done we also don’t leave that up to guessing. We take a very specific set of biomechanical x-rays. What this means is we actually put your head and neck into motion when taking films. This makes it so we can see if these top bones are moving correctly or incorrectly. This set of x-rays is crucial in determining the adjustment. We only take the set of x-rays once and they are digital which means faster and clearer images and way less radiation. If you’re concerned about the radiation from x-rays, the films we take produce less radiation than flying from here to New York, so it is very low and not something you need to be concerned about. We also send all of our films out to another radiologist to make sure there isn’t anything extremely wrong and that we are safely able to proceed with care.
By establishing what and how the adjustment needs to be done with specific x-rays, along with computerized infrared thermography, all of the guesswork regarding chiropractic care for headaches and migraines is gone. We can confidently come up with a care plan that is tailored to your needs and is tweaked as we continue on with care based on the objective findings we are seeing.
What about at home?
Nervous system regulation seems to be all the rage right now, which makes me happy because when I’m talking about on this blog or on social media people understand it a little better. What’s cool is that there are things you can do at home to help regulate your nervous system. This is important as your Trigeminal Nerve is…well…part of your nervous system! If you struggle with migraines you probably need more parasympathetic input, meaning you need your body to get out of a fight or flight state.
Here’s a really great FREE resource I made for you!
The Ultimate Nervous System Reset For Migraines Without Popping Pills
It has a lot of exercises you can do at home to help support your nervous system and bring it back into this parasympathetic state we are supposed to be in. This also has a huge impact on the trigeminal nerve and all of its branches that control a lot of the blood that takes place in our brain.
What’s great about this resource is you can literally do it anywhere…from at home to commuting to being on vacation. It’s also a great introduction to other things that are more challenging to do at home but can be done with practice.
When it comes down to it the magic ingredient when it comes to getting relief and resolution to migraines is nervous system regulation. This isn’t the biggest secret in the world but I think a lot of people and doctors out there don’t truly understand how they are truly correlated. I think this article gives you a good idea as to how the nervous system playsTHE major role in migraines along with abnormal blood pressure which is under direct control of the nervous system. You might be like the people I see in my office who have had all the testing in the world done but if you haven’t had a computerized infrared thermography test done of your nervous system, you may now know the missing link to becoming migraine free.
I think that’s enough for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed this if you’ve read this far!