Hi, I’m Dr. Steve Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic. I want to talk for a second about chiropractic and migraine headaches.
Specifically, what is causing the migraine and how chiropractic plays a role in getting rid of that migraine? So, let’s look at the spine structurally. This is the back of the spine, this is the pointy part that you can actually feel in your back. The vertebra, you have 24 of those. From the front view, you can see discs. These little inner vertebral discs they’re called. They’re like little shock absorbers. They separate the bones apart to create holes where these nerves can exit.
So, you have little pairs of nerves on either side that exit directly behind the disc. So, when things get out of place in the spine they do so backwards. So that did, that, because of the design of the vertebra, it must go backwards first. So, it kind of takes the disc and shears it a little bit. So it stretches it, kind of shears it like that. The body will react by clamping down on that area and keeping it immobilized so it can’t get injured anymore. So, the muscles get really tight. The area swells, the disc will swell and when it does, so it swells oftentimes right into the nerve because the nerve lives right next to the disc.
What happens in the case of migraines is that you have a real increase in the level of function of the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system as an aspect of your nervous system that handles and regulates fight or flight. So, when this system gets really stoked up, we, it’s really common to see symptoms like migraine.
So, a lot of the symptoms associated with migraine, are you know, so you have a headache obviously, but it’s different from other headaches in the sense that a lot of times the hormones are involved. There’s a hormonal component. There’s also oftentimes an aura you can see like little lights. Sometimes even get a weird smell, photophobia where you’re really sensitive to bright light and sounds. Also, it can be nausea, fatigue and all kinds of other things going on.
So, if we can locate a structural cause for that in the spine where the spine is out of place and putting pressure on those nerves that are collectively kind of stoking up that sympathetic response it’s called or sympathetic firestorm. We can allow the body to, you know, take pressure off of the nervous system allow it to rebalance out and get rid of those symptoms. Get rid of the migraine headaches.
I have great success with doing just that. And the success lies in being really specific. Really analyzing exactly where that’s coming from where the pressure is on the nervous system and removing it and allowing the body to come back into balance.
So, that’s why her practice is such a successful and such a crucial element to solving the migraine puzzle. I’m Dr. Steven Battaglino with Battaglino Family Chiropractic and this has been your health minute.