As a chiropractor in San Diego who treats many headache sufferers, you’d think that most would think there’s a shortage of aspirin in their body leading to the cause of the headache. Headaches of course aren’t the result of an aspirin shortage in the body. But the way most people treat their headache by popping pill after pill you’d think it was due to a shortage. There are, however, many safe and effective treatment options for headaches. Some of them have been around for many years, and they have absolutely nothing to do with drugs surgery.

Alternative therapies such as chiropractic care have taken the lead in the treatment of many conditions such as headaches. As a matter of fact, a study in the Journal Of The AMA indicated that Americans now visit alternative care providers nearly twice as often as traditional providers. And these numbers continue to grow and a fast pace.

In 1997, Americans spent an astonishing twenty seven billion dollars on visits to alternative practitioners. This was a huge increase of 45% over the year 1990. What’s more astounding was that most of this money was not reimbursed by traditional insurance plans! By the looks of this, it doesn’t seem very alternative anymore. What is shocking too is how long these alternative treatments are often suppressed, even in the presence of obvious and persuasive evidence. I’m not saying there’s a plot. That’s not it whatsoever. This is just the way things work in the world. It’s all about money and economics. This is why don’t you see the big oil companies running ads for electric cars. That’s because it just won’t profit them. It will actually make them lose money. There is no incentive for them to do it. They’d much rather see you keep driving that big gas-guzzler that makes them money. For the same reason, you won’t find billion dollar drug companies talking about the wonders of drugless miracles. There’s no incentive for them to do that. It may not be fair, but it is good business for them. That’s why you really have to watch who you listen to in this world and find out the real source of the information. After all, until just recently, hormone replacement therapy was the miracle cure-all for post-menopausal women. Now, after 30 years of use, it’s been linked to many side effects such as an increase rate of breast cancer, stroke and heart disease.

There are many facts about headaches that people don’t understand. Let’s start with a few facts right here: At least 50 million Americans see their doctors for headaches each year, and an unknown number simply treat head pain themselves. 9 out of 10 Americans suffer from headaches. 95% of headaches are primary headaches, such as tension, migraine, or cluster headaches. Two-thirds of headache sufferers remain undiagnosed. Headache accounts for 8 million office visits each year. These types of headaches are not caused by disease. The headache itself is the primary concern. Nearly 90 percent of primary headaches are tension-type.

So, if all these headaches that we discussed are tension-type headaches, I bet you’re wondering what a tension-type headache really is. Tension-type headaches can be caused when malfunctioned spinal bones cause joint, nerve and muscle irritation in your neck area. The pain can travel from the top of your shoulders and upper back into the head, sometimes forming a band-like pain around the head causing a tension type headache. “The greatest majority of primary headaches are associated with muscle tension in the neck area,” says Dr. George B. McClelland, a doctor of chiropractic from Christiansburg, VA, and member of the American Chiropractic Association’s (ACA) Board of Governors. “Today, Americans engage in more sedentary lifestyle than they used to, and more hours are spent in one fixed position or posture. This can increase joint irritation and muscle tension in the neck area, upper back and scalp, causing your head to have pain.” So what can you do to help this most common type of headache when you experience it? You should get to the cause of your problem.

In a 1995 study in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, a research study found that spinal manipulative treatment administered by doctors of chiropractic is an effective treatment for tension headaches and that those who stopped chiropractic treatment after four weeks experienced a sustained therapeutic benefit in contrast with those patients who received a commonly prescribed pain medication for headaches. The most likely explanation for the great results done by chiropractors for headaches is that the spinal adjustment gets to the cause of the headache by relieving the tension on the joint, muscle and nerve. It doesn’t just cover up the symptoms like drugs do. Drugs may temporarily numb some of the pain, but they never actually fix the underlying cause of the headache. If you suffer from headaches, there are many drug and surgery free options available. You don’t have to suffer anymore.

Want to find out more about headaches, then visit New Century Spine Centers site on how to choose the best chiropractor for your needs.