Children are prone to headaches as well as adults.
In this country, most people treat headaches with Aspirin, which only makes for temporary pain relief. Chiropractic can address the cause of headaches and improve overall health. When you think about someone having a headache, you probably think of an adult. However, an increasing number of children experience chronic headaches.
The majority of school-age children get headaches, and many have headaches on a recurrent basis. Even before entering school, roughly one-third of children experience a headache at some point. Recurrent pediatric headache is a common disorder that may affect half of the population.
Researchers found headaches can affect children’s emotional development and school performance more than some other serious health problems and they can have a significant impact on children’s overall quality of life. The negative impact of migraine on is children’s quality of life is similar to the effects associated with cancer and arthritis. Children with headaches are adversely affected in all areas of functioning, including school performance, emotional development, and physical health.
Children who experience frequent headaches are more likely to develop health problems in adulthood, including psychiatric disorders. Children do not simply “grow out” of their physical complaint, but may instead “grow into” others.
The brain itself is insensitive to pain. Headache pain occurs in the following locations:
- The tissues covering the brain
- The attaching structures at the base of the brain
- Muscles and blood vessels around the scalp, face and neck
Some different types of headaches include: tension, cluster and migraine with associate pain being described as sharp, stabbing, dull, throbbing and vice-like. Migraine with or without aura is the most common form of acute recurrent headaches in children.
Different types of physical, chemical and emotional stress are associated with headaches – including fatigue, worry, noise, fluorescent lights, travel, improper sleep, smoke and food additives such as MSG and nitrates, often trigger headaches.
Headaches have commonly been treated with medications such as aspirin or Tylenol. Americans consume 80 billion aspirin tablets each year. Aspirin, which is the active ingredient in more than 50 over the counter medications, may temporarily relieve the discomfort of the headache, but it does little to correct the cause of the problem.
Addressing the cause
Although headaches are not caused by just one specific source, a large amount of research clearly demonstrates that the majority of headaches are caused by problems in the cervical (neck) region of the spine. The vertebra of the cervical spine can become misaligned because of excessive or repetitive stress.
These misalignments, also known as “vertebral subluxations” irritate the nerves in the neck and cause excessive muscle tension, all of which can contribute to a wide variety of headaches.
An increasing number of headache victims are turning to Chiropractic for help. This only makes sense as the Doctor of Chiropractic specializes in the structure of the spine and its protective relationship to the nervous system. Chiropractors detect and correct spinal misalignments by physically adjusting the spine to restore its proper structural position.
This removes the spinal stress and allows the nervous system to function correctly. The effectiveness of Chiropractic in resolving headaches has been well documented in research and case studies all over the world.
Chiropractic treatment is also drug-free, allowing the patient relief from pain without the damaging side effects often seen with medical treatment. There is also no risk of rebound headaches, and this type of care may help to avert worst case scenarios (including stroke) by reducing the frequency or eliminating the symptoms of headaches.
Our mission is to help your entire family achieve optimal health. To learn more about how our Mount Pleasant Chiropractors can treat the cause of your child’s headaches, please contact Beyond Wellness today for a free consultation.