Can Chiropractors help with Migraines?

If you are a migraine sufferer, you know that a tension headache can’t hold a candle to your debilitating migraine attacks. You’ve lost entire days lying in dark rooms, missing out on work and play. A migraine with a visual aura or scotoma can be particularly frightening. Over the years, I have met so many people who have suffered with migraines, people who didn’t know that chiropractic care can often stop these headaches!
You’ve probably been checked by medical doctors, and perhaps had a head scan, only to be told there is nothing wrong with you. Then what’s going on? Well, your medical doctors are not trained in a detailed examination of the upper cervical spinal joints. What I find almost invariably when examining a person who gets migraines, is that these joints at the base of the skull are jammed, stiff and tender. Associated findings can include very tense muscles in the upper shoulders and/or jaws. Often the person reports nausea, and this makes sense, since the vagus nerve (an autonomic nerve that governs the digestive organs) exits the base of the skull just where these upper cervical spinal joints are seated.
How did the upper cervical area get so jammed? If often starts early in life, with a trauma to the head or neck. It could even have started at childbirth! Ask your parents if you suffered from colic. In babies, colic is often associated with upper cervical spinal joint dysfunction. A series of chiropractic adjustments can gradually restore the function of the spine, and people usually report that their migraines come on with much less frequency and intensity, if at all.