First and foremost, our Oakville Chiropractic Clinic wants to make sure if you are having an extreme headache of any kind you go to hospital or your medical doctor. Secondly, if you are having the “worst headache pain of your life,” we want you to check out the stroke guidelines and get the appropriate emergency help you need. Finally, we cannot help with headaches caused by the Coronavirus. We did some research, and the best advice we read suggested increasing you water intake and seeking the advice of your medical doctor….now on the the headache you’re getting from working at home in Oakville! We can help with those!
Headache Treatment in Oakville
Have you been stuck at home working at a makeshift computer station while the kids drive you nuts all day? Is the stress from the Covid-19 scare getting to you? Dr. Steve and Dr. Jenn have had a large influx of headache, upper back and neck pain patients coming to their Oakville Chiropractic Clinic. At this time, we do not believe the headaches and neck pain are coming from any kind of sickness, but posture and lack of proper ergonomics at your make shift at home work station. If you have noticed increased pain and decreased range of motion along with headaches since you have been social distancing at home, get in to see our Chiropractic experts now! Suffering from Migraine headaches? Dr. Jenn has the acupuncture treatment you need!
How to fix your headache!
If you think your headache could be something more, please call your medical doctor or visit the hospital! If you live in Oakville and think your headache is coming from staring at your laptop and cell phone all day, welcome to the club. Text Neck is literally a pain in the neck! If you are used to sitting at an ergonomic work station all day with a stand alone computer or a docking station from your laptop, there is no wonder why you are in pain and suffering from headaches now. If you can’t make a proper desk top workstation we have some steps for you to assure you’re doing all you can to avoid the symptoms of text neck and headaches!
Why your neck is causing your headache!
Headaches can be caused by many things. In this particular blog we are going to discuss your neck and your upper back and why your bad posture at home is killing you slowly!
Most of our patients with headaches caused by poor posture are stuck working on a laptop on a kitchen table or coffee table. They are hunched over, leaning forward and looking down. Then when they need a break from the at-home work they jump on their phone and exacerbate the process even further. Text neck is caused by staring down at our digital devices. One word of advice, lift your phone up!
Our Oakville Chiropractors say that the constant forward head posture puts a lot of stress on your spine and the muscle and nerves that support it. Headaches can be caused by text neck and the change of cervical spine posture. Leaning forward all day on your phone or laptop can increase the tension on the muscles on your neck. Text neck changes the angles of your spine and the way the nerves and muscles function. This can lead to overwhelming tight and uncomfortable neck and upper back muscles, which in turn can lead to crippling headaches.
3 Fixes To Stop Your Headaches!
1. Change Your Workstation Setup
If you’re stuck on a work laptop and can’t get a stand alone computer you need to elevate your screen! Our chiropractors say you need to lift the laptop and the monitor to eye level. This will increase the height of your keyboard and touch pad. To adjust for this, you’re going to order a stand alone keyboard and mouse from Amazon for 30 dollars and get the posture help you need to avoid text neck and related headaches. Bonus point: use a chair with arm rests and push them directly under the table your laptop is propped up on!
2. Get Up, Move Around and Stretch to Stop Headaches and Text Neck!
Our Chiropractic team says you should get up and move around every 20 to 30 minutes when sitting at your computer. Dr. Steve says set an alarm on your phone for 28 minutes. When it goes off, walk around for 30 seconds, do 10 jumping jacks, 30 second wall sit then 5 lunges each side! Not only will you help your headaches by getting off the computer you will also build increased muscle and stay beach shape ready! As far as neck stretches go, follow these guidelines: Stretch within the first hour of work, within the first hour after lunch and once more before you go home for the day. If you are stuck at home with Covid-19 and suffering from text neck and headaches, stretch when you get up in the morning, when you have lunch and before you go to bed. Here are some great chiropractor approved stretches for headaches and text neck.
3. Get treatment from your Oakville Chiropractor for your text neck and headaches!
Treatment for those Oakville chiropractic patients suffering from headaches or text neck consists of a 4 step process out our clinic.
- Active Release Therapy or ART of the tight muscles around the neck and upper back. Not only does this help loosen the muscles but it allows for a better chiropractic adjustment to help with your headaches
- Interferrential Current Therapy and a Heat pack. Much like the ART the IFC helps relax the injured muscles, improves blood flow and just feels like a deep massage. The heat is used to increase blood flow and allow the patient to further relax. This will aid in your chiropractic adjustemt to eleviate your headaches and text neck symptoms.
- Passive Stretching. For this our chiropractor will just ask you to relax and move your neck further then its moved in a while. Dr. Steve and Dr. Jenn might use different techniques like PNF stretching or over pressure to help improve range of motion and improve your headache.
- Chiropractic Adjustment for Headaches: This is the bread and butter of our Oakville Chiropractic headache treatment. In essence, it is the most important part of treatment. Our Chiropractors will adjust both your upper back and neck to align your spine and get you positioned in the right place. We find 75% of text neck is coming from your upper thoracic spine and 90% of headaches are coming from your neck. Most patients will notice a difference after their first chiropractic treatment for text neck or headaches.
- Acupuncture is an effective tool to battle headaches coming from the neck. Acupuncture can help ease tight muscles and calm irritated nerves to alleviate headache pain. Learn more about acupuncture for headaches here.
If you are suffering from an increased level of stress and and lack of proper ergonomics working from home during the Covid-19 outbreak, don’t worry, you are not alone. Our Oakville Chiropractic Clinic has remained open for our high need patients and emergency pain visits. We choose to remain open to serve the Oakville community and alleviate the unneeded stress on the Emergency Room at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. Dr. Steve has been seeing a large influx of patients with headaches from text neck related injuries. Vertigo and migraines have become more relevant with people working from home, in the wrong position, under increased levels of stress.