Headaches can be brutal.  They can kill your social life.  Make you take medications that make you feel worse.  Cause you to miss school or work.

I recently had a patient describe her headaches like this:

“This headache makes me feel like someone is hitting me in the head with a baseball bat over and over again.” ~ H.G.

Brutal.

Millions of people swallowing pills for years, possibly suffering from the side effects of long-term

“The negative impact of chronic headaches on quality of life, families, and productivity can be
significant and is generally underrated by the medical profession.” ~ University of Maryland

medication – are not getting any better, only temporarily feeling better.  Surely, that’s not a healthy way to live.  Sadly, for many, they don’t know any other way to function and get through their day.

Most people treat their headaches with over the counter medications such as aspirin or Tylenol.

In fact, Canadians ingest some 8 billion aspirin tablets each year. Acetyl-salicylic acid (found in Aspirin) 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.

Aspirin use has been strongly associated with bleeding ulcers, Reyes syndrome and kidney disorders.

Regular painkiller use can make subsequent headaches even worse, causing “rebound headaches”.

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Headaches – A Hidden Epidemic.

Millions of headache sufferers look for natural, drugless approaches to treating headaches.  They are frustrated with the lack of resolve from medications.

Among the many things contributing to your health are: the quality of the air, food and water you take in; how you handle emotional stress; your use of drugs; exercise; and relaxation.  A healthy spine is absolutely essential.  In some people, it is a major factor and can make the difference between a life of health, strength and vitality or a life of disease, weakness and disability.

When you think about someone having a headache, you probably think of an adult. However, an increasing number of children experience chronic headaches

The National Headache Foundation estimates that over sixty percent of all children suffer from occasional 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. Children miss more than one million days of school each year because of headaches.  Recurrent pediatric headache is a common disorder that may affect half of the population.

A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that children who experience frequent headaches are more likely to develop health problems in adulthood, including psychiatric disorders. The findings follow a survey of a random study group over 40 years and could have implications for the health of today’s children and their future well-being. The research team found that children with frequent headaches were more likely to experience psychosocial problems and to grow up with an excess of both headache and other physical and psychiatric symptoms. These findings confirm that children with headaches do not simply “grow out” of their physical complaint, but may instead “grow into” others, say the authors.

The “ache” in a headache comes from veins and arteries inside the brain and skull, membranes that wrap around the brain and certain nerves in the head called the cranial nerves.  When these are pulled, stretched, compressed, irritated, inflamed or infected, headaches often result.

There can be many triggers that can cause a headache, including strong smells, intense lights, sinus trouble, high blood pressure, dental problems, ear or eye/vision conditions, fevers, infections, tumors, seizures, lumbar punctures, alcoholic drinks, drugs, accidents and other causes.

The most common headache of all is the muscle tension, worry or “stress” headache that accounts for 90% of all headaches

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.

In a study of 6,000 long-term headache sufferers (experiencing headaches regularly for 2 to 25 years) revealed that neck injury (whiplash or falls) was the most important factor in the cause of the headache and should be suspected in every nonspecific case of headache.

In my 12 years of private practice, I’ve helped hundreds of patients who struggled with headaches.  I’ve learned from them over the years, and I’ve put together a special health report to help my patients, and I want to share it with you.

I’ll teach you more about the possible triggers affecting you and there hidden sources.  You’ll learn what you can do now to help yourself and how a little known cause of headaches has been known for over 100 years, and how you can get to the root of your headaches once and for all.

Dr. Craig Hazel’s mission is to help families THRIVE.  After graduating from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Physical and Health Education, he went on to earn a Doctor of Chiropractic degree and a Bachelor of Science in Anatomy from Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas Texas.  He is passionate about seeing children and families in his private practice at Synergy Chiropractic in Kanata Ontario.  A sought after speaker, he has been featured regularly on TSN Team 1200, CTV and Rogers TV. He is also the Chairman of the Alliance for Chiropractic of Ontario.