Call (480) 451-6161 to schedule an appointment to help relieve headaches or neck pain.
Our naturopathic doctors take time to diagnose the root cause then offer treatment options that often include regenerative treatments, such as prolotherapy and PRP (Platelet-rich Plasma) integrated with indicated naturopathic therapies.
Falls, sports injuries, whiplash, even minor bumps, and twists may damage your tendons, ligaments, and discs.
Together these tissues form a structural network that holds your head erect. To stay stable after an injury, your muscles substitute, becoming overworked and cause pain (in your neck, upper back or scapula), muscle spasms, headaches, migraines, or tingling down your arm.
Headaches — Headaches are often triggered by tendonitis of the occipital tendons at the base of the skull, which hold the head erect. When they fatigue, muscle spasms, headaches and migraines may result.
Neck pain — Neck pain and muscle spasms are often caused by old whiplash injuries that loosened the ligaments supporting the neck. The pain may persist for years without proper neck pain treatments.
Headaches and Neck Pain
Headaches? Stiff neck? Ligaments are most likely involved.
- Did you have a physical injury or whiplash incident? Once ligaments in your neck are stretched, muscles take over the work of holding up your head, and you may get muscle-spasm headaches.
- Mental or emotional stress and hormones can irritate weak ligaments, and that brings on pain.
- Stiff neck? From the base of your skull, down to your shoulders, the source of the pain is nearly always a traumatic injury that damages ligaments.
- Aching at the top of your neck? This indicates strains in the sub-occipital ligaments and tendons.
- Aching in the lower-neck? If you feel pain where you’re rubbing your shoulders (trapezius muscles) may indicate instability in your lower cervical vertebrae and first, second and third rib joints. Again, the instability that comes from loosened ligaments can cause reoccurring muscle spasms.
Prolotherapy, PRP, and other regenerative treatments repair headaches, neck pain, dizziness, and muscle weakness. Prolotherapy directly strengthens your ligaments and gets you out of pain. Treatment often includes traction and manipulation. Your neck gets stronger and more durable.
Many headaches related to menstrual cycle respond to prolotherapy and PRP because changing hormones appear as ligament weakness — irritating an already weak or injured neck until you have pain in your neck.
Activity, specific foods, or a minor irritant may bring on a headache. Not that they are the underlying cause — it’s usually a history of trauma 5-25 years earlier.
Prolotherapy or PRP may remedy headaches, neck pain, dizziness, and muscle weakness by getting at the core of the problem: traumatic injury to the ligaments (facettes) that connect and support the bones in your spine (vertebral subluxation). Prolotherapy directly strengthens ligaments.
Typical treatment locations are in the upper neck, where the ligaments that hold your head up all day long connect. We use prolotherapy to strengthen ligaments, often with traction and spinal manipulation.
You may have had pain so severe that you had x-rays or an MRI – often ligament issues are overlooked in the review of imaging; they are one important component for arthritis, herniated discs. Sometimes discs can pinch a nerve, and sometimes they are demonstrating “ligament laxity.”
Palpation exam palpatory examination of posterior head and neck provides an accurate diagnosis of trigger points. Can recreate the patient’s pain by carefully palpating. That’s true everywhere — accurate diagnosis the pain-producing area.
“Again, the accuracy in diagnosing the actual pain producing area, because the physician recreates the pain by palpating.” Gives confidence that the pain-producing structure is located.
“Prolotherapy is effective against a migraine, cluster, and muscle contraction headaches if ligament laxity is present.”
Our patients come from cities across the nation to visit our clinic for head, back & neck pain treatments in Phoenix and Scottsdale. Call (480) 451-6161 to schedule an appointment with one of our naturopathic doctors specializing in PRP, prolotherapy and other regenerative treatments.