I have a headache as I’m writing this, and I was thinking of what I can blog about when I thought – I know, I’ll blog about headaches!
We all get headaches, some of us even get migraines. Lucky for me, I’ve never got a migraine. knock wood They can be pretty debilitating at times.
My headaches usually result from my back issues. The collapsed disc in my lower spine results in a spinal and muscular imbalance which causes muscle tension in the shoulders and neck, with the main effect being extremely tight muscles from the shoulders that go up the back of the neck and into (or connect with) the base of the skull.
This tension in that location results in some amazing tension headaches. And I don’t mean good amazing either.
Over the years that I’ve had these headaces, aligned with the years I’ve had the back injury / disability, there have often been people who tell me to drink more water. Unfortunately, their tips have never worked for me.
Dehydration can often cause headaches too, and drinking lots of water can usually dispel such headaches. But water doesn’t dispel tension headaches resulting from spinal imbalance.
Stretching hasn’t helped me much, but it apparently should. I used to do lots of stretching, but I don’t any more. This is because I’ve never noticed a ’cause and effect benefit’ from stretching. I’ve done stretching over the years, morning and night, and it hasn’t changed the effects of my disability. I still get tension headaches.
So I’ve stopped stretching. Maybe it’s simply because I never did enough stretching, I don’t know. But too much stretching causes discomfort and pain to my back, and I just have no interest in pushing it to a point that might make it much, much worse. So I just don’t do that much of it any more.
You know what works with my headaches? Drugs. Strong drugs. And avoiding work.
When I’m busy at work, I get more tension in my shoulders, which results in more headaches. When I’m not working, there’s no tension, and no headaches.
I was VERY surprised over the holidays when I drove 5,000km over two weeks but didn’t get any headaches or extreme back pain. That’s a LOT of hours in the car, but my back was fine, I had no tension in my shoulders and neck, and I never got a headache while I was on holiday and driving around the country.
Only when I’m working.
Seems like a good reason to give up work, don’t you think?
But what about you? Do you get headaches? Do you know why you get them? What do you do to make your headaches go away?
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