Most headaches are benign, but serious conditions can masquerade as innocent everyday pains. If you have head pain it’s important to see your medical doctor to rule out serious medical conditions that may be causing your headaches.

Even though symptoms may wreak havoc on your quality of life, in the vast majority of cases recurrent headaches are benign, that is, they don’t pose a serious health risk, and respond well to osteopathic treatment.

There are often several underlying factors contributing to headaches and migraines in an individual. These can range from unchangeable factors such as your genetics and age, to difficult to change factors such as your job and family dynamics to more readily changeable factors such as your emotional, mental and physical habits.

These changeable factors are associated with increased pressure being placed on brain, head and/or neck tissues. Excessive pressure generated by one or more of the many muscles that attach to your head is a very common and frequently overlooked source of headaches. Compression of nerves in the upper neck can lead to pain radiating into the head.

Irritation of cranial nerves closely associated with the jaw joint (TMJ) can lead to face and head pain, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), dizziness (vertigo) and a wide range of other symptoms.

Increased pressure within your head, called benign intra-cranial pressure, is a potential source of pain and a variety of symptoms related to how you inadvertently mis-use your body.

Using precise and effective Osteopathic techniques that address significant tissue sources of your headaches, migraine and other head symptoms alongside identifying and managing relevant contributing factors, even if you've had them for years or decades, you too could be headache/migraine free.

The following conditions may respond to osteopathic treatment:

  • tension headache;

  • neck generated (cervicogenic) headache;

  • migraine;

  • childhood migraine;

  • cranial nerve irritation (e.g. trigeminal and facial neuralgia);

  • benign positional vertigo (dizziness);

  • tinnitus (ringing in the ear);

  • sinusitis;

  • TMJ (temporomandibular or jaw joint) syndrome;

  • dental conditions.