In recent years there is growing evidence of the role your neck maybe playing in causing headaches and migraines. Researchers feel that neck headache accounts for up to 22% of all headaches and migraines seen clinically. (Racicki et al 2013; Watson 2014)

The good news is that by fixing your neck problem, your neck headache can be alleviated and physiotherapy for headaches and migraines can really help.

How does your neck cause headache or migraine?

Your neck headache can originate from a variety of musculoskeletal and neurovascular structures in your upper neck; including the upper three neck joints, C2/3 disc, spinal cord coverings and neck muscles.

In simple terms, your neck joints can cause a neck headache or pain if they are either too stiff, too weak, too mobile (moving too much) or over stressed by abnormal joint position and movements.

Once your neck joint becomes stressed and painful, the pain signals are referred to an information centre in your brainstem… and you start to feel a headache or migraine.

Physiotherapy treatment for headache or migraine includes manual therapy aimed to help reduce pain, loosen stiff joints. Followed by a graded progressive exercise program to strengthen the weak areas, improve your movement and modify any causative factors such as better managing stress and better managing sleep activity levels

Get assessed to see if your neck is contributing towards your headache or migraine and start your road to recovery.