Your Headache Might Be a Neck Problem

What About Migraines?

Migraine is a neurological condition, and REACH doesn’t position chiropractic or rehab as a treatment for migraine itself.

That’s worth saying because people often use “migraine” to describe any headache that’s bad enough to ruin the day.

There’s also some overlap. People with migraine can have neck pain and stiffness, and having migraine doesn’t mean you can’t also have a musculoskeletal neck problem.

Our job is to figure out whether there’s a neck component we can actually influence.

If your presentation sounds more like a primary headache disorder or something outside our lane, we’ll tell you and help point you toward the appropriate medical care.

When to Get Checked Out First

Most recurring headaches aren’t emergencies, but some headaches should be medically evaluated before anyone starts talking about posture, tight muscles, or neck mechanics.

A sudden, extremely severe headache that’s different from anything you’ve experienced before deserves urgent attention. So do headaches accompanied by new weakness, numbness, difficulty speaking, confusion, fainting, significant vision changes, fever or serious illness, or a headache that begins after significant head or neck trauma.

A major unexplained change in your normal headache pattern is another reason to get checked.

And from our end, if your history or exam doesn’t behave like the kind of problem we treat, we don’t force it into the rehab + chiropractic box.

We help you figure out where you should go next.

If You've Already Been Everywhere

Some people come to us before they’ve had a neurological workup. Others come after.

The second group can be interesting because sometimes the dangerous or neurological causes have been investigated, but the headache is still there.

If your familiar headache also changes predictably with neck movement, position, or loading, that makes us interested in whether the neck has been thoroughly assessed from a mechanical standpoint.

Not because somebody necessarily missed something.

They may simply have been answering a different question.

“Is there something medically wrong?” and “Is there something mechanical we can change?” aren’t the same question.

And It Isn't Always the Upper Neck

When someone has a headache and neck pain, it’s easy to focus entirely on the very top of the neck.

And yes, that area matters.

But we don’t stop there.

The lower neck and upper back contribute to how your head and neck move as a whole. If one region isn’t moving or tolerating load well, another region may have to do more.

That’s why we assess beyond the spot that hurts. We want to see what happens when different areas move, what reproduces your familiar complaint, and most importantly, what changes it.

If you’ve had your neck looked at before but the assessment only consisted of feeling where it was tight or checking the exact spot that hurt, there may be more worth investigating.

Most of Our Headache Patients Aren't in Crisis

They’re going to work. They’re getting through the day. They’re grinding through the week.

They just keep getting the same annoying headache.

It might show up after a long day at the computer, during a stressful week, after training, or seemingly out of nowhere. It settles down, comes back, and eventually becomes something they assume they’re just going to have to deal with.

That’s the person this page is written for.

Not because severe headaches don’t matter. They absolutely do, and sometimes they need a completely different type of care.

But if yours keeps returning and nobody has really looked at how your neck moves, loads, and relates to the headache, that’s a reasonable place to start.

The headache is where you feel it. The source may be somewhere else.