Conditions · Salt Lake City
Headaches Treatment
Not every headache starts in the head. The ones that start in the neck, and there are more of them than most people realize, respond remarkably well to hands-on care.
What it feels like
- Pain that starts at the base of the skull and wraps forward, often one-sided
- A band of pressure that builds across long desk days
- Headaches that flare with neck positions: screens, driving, reading in bed
- Tender, ropey muscles at the top of the neck and shoulders
- Reduced neck rotation: checking your blind spot got harder
- Headaches that arrived alongside a new job, new desk, or more screen time
What's usually driving it
The upper neck referring upward
The top three cervical joints share a nerve relay with the head and face, irritation there is experienced as headache. This is the cervicogenic headache, and it's mechanical: it flares with position, follows neck stiffness, and improves when the joints move properly again.
Trigger points with famous referral patterns
The upper traps, suboccipitals, and SCM muscles produce some of the best-mapped referred pain in the body: into the temple, behind the eye, across the forehead. Guarded from posture and stress, they're a textbook dry-needling target.
A rib cage and mid-back that quit
When the thoracic spine stiffens, the neck compensates with extra motion and the head drifts forward, multiplying load on exactly the joints and muscles that refer pain to the head. Treating the neck without the mid-back is why results elsewhere didn't hold.
The fix, step by step
- 1
First, a careful screen to confirm your headaches are the mechanical kind, pattern, triggers, neck exam, and to rule out the kinds that need a physician. Cervicogenic and tension-type headaches have tell-tale signatures.
- 2
Treatment targets the drivers: gentle, specific work for the upper cervical joints, dry needling for the suboccipitals and traps, and mobility restoration for the mid-back that's been feeding the problem. Many patients notice a change in frequency within the first two weeks.
- 3
The rebuild is postural capacity, not "sit up straight" nagging, but actual endurance in the deep neck flexors and mid-back so your head stops hanging off the front of your spine by 2 p.m. Plus a desk setup review, because environment is load.
Services we use for headaches
When it's not a job for us
Thunderclap onset (worst headache of your life, instantly), headache with fever and stiff neck, new neurological symptoms (vision loss, weakness, confusion, speech changes), headaches that wake you from sleep progressively, or a fundamentally new pattern after 50 all need physician evaluation first: promptly. We screen every headache patient for these before treating, every time.
Headaches questions
Clues: one-sided pain that starts at the skull base, flare-ups with neck positions or long desk stretches, reduced neck motion, and tenderness in the upper neck that reproduces your headache. The exam can usually reproduce and identify the pattern, which is also how we know we can help.
Done living with headaches?
Start with a free discovery call: tell us what's going on, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit and what the fix looks like.