Hi, I’m Dr. Jared Nielsen. I’d like to talk to you today about six types of headache and differentiate them for our health as a discussion.
Number one, a cervicogenic, or neck related, or generated headache. Number two a blood sugar, or thyroid type headache. Number three a migraine type headache, number four vascular fragility or a protein escape headache, number five a cluster headache, and number six frontal sinus, or sinusitis related headache.
So many people suffer from headaches, and headaches really are not normal. So often I have a patient that comes in and says, “I’ve had normal headaches like once a day, once a week, once a month,” and that really is unacceptable. Head pain and headaches really should not exist.
When we look at the differentiation of headaches the first headache that we think of is the headache that comes on as the day progresses. This is typically the headache where you feel tension in the back of the head, comes forward to the eye, and typically timing occurs in the afternoon, or as the day progresses.
Usually the hallmark of this headache is that it’s resolved by rest. This is called a cervicogenic headache, or a neck generated headache. Typically the correction is simply a chiropractic adjustment, or some type of a physical therapy modality.
The second type of headache I’d like to discuss is a blood sugar imbalance, or a thyroid headache. This is differentiated typically by a headache that you wake up with. AM headaches that are relieved by eating are typically a blood sugar headache.
That means then that during the night when you’re fasting or sleeping because your body isn’t able to take in the food, the normal endocrine mechanisms are not occurring. We need to look at adrenal glands and then again thyroid. Thyroid headaches also are AM headaches that you have daily, or frequently awaken with an AM headache.
The third type of headache I’d like to discuss are migraine headaches. A lot of people experience migraine episodes. Some people have migraine headaches that have the aura. Visual spots, numbness in the side of the face, numbness in the tongue, numbness in the extremity, sensitivity to sound, sensitivity to light, and then actually the headache begins.
Some people suffer these types of headaches for several days, or even weeks. The migraine headache is really associated with a change in blood flow in the brain. As you look at the migraine headache, really we need to determine is this migraine related to, in the female, a hormone menstrual cycle associated with estrogen dominance, and a problem with liver function.
Is it associated with a past traumatic injury to the head, or to the brain? Is it a change in brain sensitivity in a specific region called the thalamus that then gates the information associated with eye intake, and ear intake, or ear input? It now can’t balance that, and now we get a spreading what we call a polarization in the brain.
Migraine headaches really need to be looked at closely because typically there’s some type of imbalance that’s occurring that we need to restore. A lot of people use magnesium. Others have used valerian and butcher’s broom to treat these because it is a circulatory type of a presentation in the brain that doesn’t allow oxygen to get back to the brain cells to allow that appropriate metabolic function, or threshold to be maintained.
The next type of headache that I’d like to discuss, number four, is the specific headache that actually is associated with a daily timing that’s very predictable, and a specific area of the brain. This headache really is differentiated still from the cluster type of a headache, but is like a cluster in that it has a very specific timing.
A lot of people experience these headaches, where in the daytime it comes in a specific area of the brain, and it comes on at a specific time. This headache is usually associated with weakness, or fragility of the blood vessels in the brain allowing increased permeability, where then proteins that actually escape into, or outside, excuse me of the blood vessel and that generates pain.
Usually look at some type of a rutien, R‑U‑T‑I‑E‑N based product that helps to strengthen or restore the blood vessel integrity and then keeps the proteins from being so permeable, or escaping the blood vessels so easily, creating that irritation in the brain.
Those often also associate that type of headache with increased permeability, in the gut, leaky gut syndromes, food sensitivities. We really need to analyze or evaluate that type of headache. The cluster headache, specifically, is the headache that a lot of people experience that is…
There’s this timing headache that they will describe as, they just wish they could just put their head in the vice. They will actually hit their head against the wall or the floor. This is something that we look at that, typically, is seasonal.
A lot of people say they experience cluster headaches in the fall, or “It seems like every fall, every spring, I get this headache.” With that, we really need to evaluate environmental type sensitivity, springtime, spring allergies, fall time, fall allergies.
Looking again at that response in the brain that may be being triggered by some type of an external stress or that’s actually giving us window in to an imbalance in endocrine response or a sensitivity response. Specifically in this case hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal, and spleen. Those are organs with what we are really looking at with the closer type headache.
The last headache I would like to discuss today is the sinus type headache. A lot of people experience sinus headaches. These are typically the pressure over the sinuses above the eyes, below the eyes and often will give pain in to the teeth.
People experience pain in the teeth because the nerve receptors that go project upward are right there at the sinus level, and sinus pressure will actually put pressure back against the nerves that give innovation to the roots of the teeth.
When we look at sinus headaches it’s very easily differentiated by leaning forward to tie a shoe or to pick something up the pressure will actually increase. In chronic sinusitis is most commonly cause by a yeast or a fungal infection. In fact 94 per cent to 96 per cent of chronic sinusitis and therefore sinus headache are linked to fungus and yeast infections.
When we look at that a lot of people think allergies and end up using a lot of antihistamine type drugs. The reality is these sinus headaches are commonly linked to a gut pathology, meaning some type of dysbiosis or inappropriate growth in the tummy, like bacterial overgrowth and fungal or yeast overgrowth.
Analysis of the tummy, correctional of the environment of the tummy and the restoration than of appropriate bacterial balances allow the tummy then to reduce the inflammation of the system thus reducing in the sinuses in the mucus that’s produced.
In fact your stomach actually produces a [indecipherable 56:10] system of about eight cups of mucus a day, whereas your sinuses will produce approximately a half cup to even a cup of flame for a lot of people with post nasal drip. If those areas are inflamed enough it will actually wall off or block the drainage of the mucus flowing and give them that really tight pressure.
I am Dr. Nielsen, I hope that this headache discussion has helped you and your family.