During the pandemic when we were not able to offer in-person services to you, our valued clients, we shared a blog post about ways to manage a migraine from home. Now that we can welcome you back to the office, we want to remind you of the benefits of natural migraine treatments for your headache pain.
1. Acupuncture
There are many pressure points that can relieve headache or migraine pain – sometimes in an instant!
Acupuncture seems to normalize areas of the brainstem that help with pain control. Regular acupuncture treatment has been shown to reduce the frequency and severity of migraines by up to 50% (1).
Patients who received acupuncture over a 12 week period had similar results as patients taking migraine prevention medication. If you’re looking to reduce the frequency of migraine headaches and eliminate medications, acupuncture may be the solution for you!
2. Massage Therapy
Massage therapy contributes to overall wellness and reduces physical and mental stresses that can lead to migraine headaches. Receiving a massage can also improve the quality of your sleep, which is a key factor in reducing the frequency of migraine headaches.
Holding onto stress or tension in the head, particularly in the jaw, has also been linked to increased migraines. Massage is very effective at treating TMJ which is often linked with migraines.
Did you know the jaw is the strongest muscle in your body? It makes sense when you think about the amount of exercise your jaw muscles get in a day!
Getting a massage once a month is highly recommended to reduce the frequency of migraines.
3. Chiropractic
About 60% of migraine sufferers experience neck and upper back pain and muscle tension; perhaps as a migraine trigger, a result of the migraine, or both.
Dysfunction in the joints of your neck increases the risk of ‘non-improvement’ in migraine headaches up to 6 times. Maintaining spinal and neck function is critical to reducing the frequency of migraines.
Visiting a chiropractor is an important piece of a full migraine treatment plan that also includes medication and lifestyle changes.
We Can Help!
Don’t forget that you can also take actions to prevent a migraine before it starts.
It’s important to take a holistic approach to migraines, combining pharmaceutical and natural migraine treatments to give yourself the best possible outcome. Here at Brightpath, we are happy to now be able to offer Massage in addition to Acupuncture and Chiropractic so you can meet all your treatment needs in one place.
References:
(1) Linde K, Allais G, Brinkhaus B, Fei Y, Mehring M, Vertosick EA, Vickers A, White AR. Acupuncture for the prevention of episodic migraine. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2016, Issue 6. Art. No.: CD001218. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001218.pub3.
Musil F, Pokladnikova J, Pavelek Z, Wang B, Guan X, Valis M. Acupuncture in migraine prophylaxis in Czech patients: an open-label randomized controlled trial. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2018 May 10;14:1221-1228. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S155119.
