Can Chiropractic Treatment Help Migraines in Towson?

How Chiropractic Migraine Treatment Works

Corey came to us with migraines that occur every 45 days. She gets a migraine every day for about 4 days in a row and in between her migraines she has headaches on a daily basis. She has to take time out of her day to lay down to try to get relief from her headache pain.

In order to treat Corey’s migraines and headaches, we’re using a combination of dry needling, ultrasound stimulation to loosen her muscles, and adjustments. As Corey mentions, she has tried a range of different treatments but hasn’t had results. She tried acupuncture (which is different to dry needling) and while it reduced the stress, it didn’t reduce the pain. Corey also visited a neurologist who prescribed migraine medication but that didn’t solve the problem either.

Dry needling and acupuncture may sound similar but they’re actually very different. The same sort of dry needles are used in both acupuncture and dry needling but that is really the only similarity between them. Acupuncture focuses on placing dry needles on energy or meridian lines while dry needling has a musculoskeletal approach focused on placing needles in muscles that are tight or in pain to relieve that pain and tension. This is very different from acupuncture, which is an Asian complete system of healing focusing on meridians, energy, and chi.

Dry needling uses a thin monofilament needle to penetrate the skin and treat underlying muscular trigger points or muscle tension, injuries, and pain. This process has been proven to relieve and improve neuromusculoskeletal pain and movement impairments in many patients.

A trigger point is an area of constriction or tension in muscle fibers that can disrupt function, restrict mobility or range of motion, and cause intense pain and tenderness. Dry needling is used to target these tight trigger points in a particular muscle so that they loosen, allow blood flow to increase, and relieve pain.

While the name may sound intimidating or painful, dry needling causes minimal discomfort if any. Our patients compare dry needling's effectiveness to that of multiple deep tissue massages, but in a fraction of the time. During dry needling, a patient may feel a twitch in the muscle as it releases tension.

It’s important to note that there are many different chiropractic treatments for migraines. Chiropractic treatment is very personalized and your experience with one chiropractor will likely be different from another. Dry needling for migraines is a very effective procedure so it’s very likely that we’ll recommend it if you come into our Towson office with migraine pain.

By creating a migraine treatment plan that combines dry needling, ultrasound stimulation, and adjustments to the neck, we’ve been able to reduce the number of headaches and migraines that Corey experiences. Her range of motion has improved as well. We specifically adjust the neck to take pressure off where the migraines occur. We can tell where she needs to be adjusted by where the pain is being referred to.

Corey had gotten so used to the daily pain of headaches that she didn’t even realize it was a normal daily occurrence for her. When she started to finally experience days without any headache pain, she was reminded what it’s like to not have to deal with intense pain on a daily basis.

You don’t have to deal with pain on a daily basis either. If you experience migraines or headaches, you probably didn't even realize that chiropractic treatment could help. Click here or call (410) 296-7700 to schedule your chiropractic treatment for migraines and get relief from the intense pain.