This September 21-25 marks Headaches and Migraines awareness week.
Everyone has headaches now and then, and it can be a normal experience, but when it is daily, or persistent, or you are experiencing frequent migraines it can become debilitating and start impacting your quality of life. You might think that it is just you, but you’re not alone. According to the 2022 National Health Survey, almost 1 in 15 Australians were living with long-term migraine. Making it the most common neurological condition in Australia!
We see patients for headaches and migraines frequently, but often as a secondary concern they mention in passing while we are treating other aches and pains. But you don’t have to live with it, there are treatments available. In this blog, I’m going to talk about some types of headaches and migraine, and help you understand how Osteopathy could help.
The Three Headaches We See Most Often
Not all headaches are the same, and understanding which type you’re dealing with makes a big difference to how it’s treated.
Tension type headaches are the most common type. They usually feel like a tight band squeezing around your head, often starting at the base of the skull or across the forehead. They’re closely linked to muscle tightness in the neck, shoulders and jaw. Think long days at a desk, screen time, stress, or poor sleep posture.
Cervicogenic headaches originate from the neck itself. The joints and muscles in your upper neck are packed with nerve endings that refer pain up into the head, often on one side. If your headache tends to start at the back of your skull and travel forward, or gets worse when you turn your head or sit at a desk for long periods, this is often the culprit.
Migraines are a different beast altogether. They are a neurological condition that can involve throbbing pain, nausea, light and sound sensitivity, and sometimes visual disturbances. While migraines have a strong neurological component, research increasingly shows that neck tension and poor cervical mechanics can act as a trigger or amplifier for migraine episodes in many people, even if they aren’t the root cause.
What’s Really Driving Your Headaches
For a lot of our patients, the pattern is strikingly similar: hours spent hunched over a laptop or phone, shoulders creeping up towards the ears, and a jaw that’s clenched without them even realising it. Over time, this creates stiffness through the upper neck and base of the skull, the exact area responsible for referring pain into the head.
Add in poor sleep, dehydration, high stress levels, or an old whiplash injury that never quite resolved, and you’ve got the perfect storm for recurring headaches. The tricky part is that the pain shows up in your head, so it’s easy to overlook that the actual source of the problem is sitting in your neck and upper back.
How Osteopathy Can Help with Headaches
This is where Osteopathic treatment comes in. Rather than just treating the symptom, an Osteopath looks at the whole picture, we assess your posture, your neck and upper back mobility, your jaw tension, and even how you’re breathing and sleeping. And we use this information to identify what’s actually contributing to your headaches.
Treatment typically involves gentle, hands-on techniques to release tight muscles in the neck, shoulders and upper back, restore normal movement to stiff joints (particularly in the upper cervical spine), and ease pressure on the nerves that can refer pain into the head. We’ll also look at your day-to-day habits, your desk setup; sleep position; and stress levels, and give you practical, easy-to-apply advice to help prevent headaches from creeping back.
For many patients, especially those with tension-type or cervicogenic headaches, this combination of hands-on treatment and practical guidance leads to noticeably fewer, milder, or shorter episodes over time. And for migraine sufferers, addressing neck tension as a trigger can be a valuable piece of a broader management plan alongside your GP or specialist.
So next time you feel a headache or a migraine, don’t push through it, look to treatment. Our Osteopaths at South Yarra Osteopathy are here to help you get through the day without pain, and to give you practical advice to help prevent or reduce future headaches and migraines.
To learn more about headaches and migraines, or to access free webinars this Headache and Migraine awareness week, visit https://headacheaustralia.org.au/
References
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/neurological-conditions/migraine-and-headache-disorders