This section holds papers and articles which you may find relevant, I find it gives me some evidence based medicine to work with.This article was found on the web, it was written in Jan 2004 see belowi. It shows that by having tension in the cranial base you can cause irritation to the dura, one of the skins around the spinal cord, which logically implies that by its irritation would cause Headaches: During research at the University of Maryland, with dissections of 25 corpses, Dr Gary Hack and colleagues may have found a connection between tension in the neck and headaches. They found that on pulling one of the muscles (rectus capitus superior minor, a small muscle deep to the base of the skull RCSM) it in turn pulled on the dura mater, a membrane that surrounds the brain. Tension in this muscle would then cause tension to this membrane and thus to it’s nerve endings and thus causing pain. "The ramifications of this finding may be one of the causes of the most common sources of pain." said Dr Hack. This was backed up by Dr Walker Robinson a colleague and neurosurgeon, by the observation that people that had this muscle cut during surgery to back of the neck and skull, seemed to be spared these tension like headaches. With headaches being the most common reason for people to visit their doctors, and drugs to treat this complaint are among the largest groups of prescribed medicines, maybe Dr Hack has done us a favour. He recommends rubbing the base of the skull and the first vertebra. It cannot do any harm, but this may not cure all headaches. ‘The presence of a connective tissue bridge, attaching suboccipital muscles to the dura mater, is now recognized as a feature of normal human anatomy. The role that this myodural bridge may play in headache production is uncertain; however, a new conceptual model is emerging. Postsurgical myodural adhesions have been reported as a complication resulting from excision of acoustic tumors. Extensive research now exists implicating these myodural [muscle dura] adhesions as a possible source of postoperative headache. Integrating these 2 types of myodural unions (anatomic and pathologic) into a unified theory of headache production, we report a single patient who experienced relief from chronic headache after surgical separation of the myodural bridge from the suboccipital musculature.’ Addenda; Andrew Taylor Still, founder of Osteopathy found something very similar, as a child he found that is he rested the back of his neck on a rope swing, it relieved his headaches. 150 years before Dr Hacks findings. It has also come to my reading that these dural attachments by the Rectus capitis Superio Minor RCSM, have variable strengths of attachment, soem are loose fascial and others firm ligamentous, this may explain why some people with similar tension to these muscles on palpation demonstrate no headaches while others strong ones.
HeadachesThe brain in itself is not sensitive to pain, because it lacks pain receptors [nociceptors]. Several areas of the head can hurt, including a network of nerves which extend over the scalp and certain nerves in the face, mouth, and throat. The meninges and the blood vessels do have pain perception. Headaches often result from traction to or irritation of the meninges and blood vessels. The membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord, called the dura mater, is innervated with nociceptors. Stimulation of these dural nociceptors is thought to be involved in producing headaches. Similarly the muscles of the head may be sensitive to pain. It has been found via dissection, that rectus capitis muscle [found and the base of the skull at the back] has attachments to the Dura. Hence these tight cervical muscles can cause tension and dural irritation thus headaches. So what can aggravate these tissues? The most common cause for tightness of muscles is protection of damaged tissue, in the case of head and neck pain, these would be around the guiding joints we have in the neck, apophyseal joints and the bones of the cranial base.These joints can be injured or aggravated at birth, playing sports, having accidents and whiplash injuries or even just doing innocuous things like sneezing for turning in bed and banging your head. An osteopath can work with a patient with aforementioned headaches, using the pathological sieve to make sure that your symptoms are suitable or referral. There can be secondary effects of having tension headaches from these aggravated joints, by the excitement of the nerves that are related to these areas, which can cause gastric upsets like irritable bowel syndrome, colic and regurgitation or reflux in babies, ear infections, sinus problems and facial pain even attention deficit syndrome; because all these tissues can be effected by the reflex arc and tightness of the muscles that are protecting that area. Patients have reported reductions in severity of said symptoms after treatment to upper neck muscle hypertonia. What are the symptoms of tension and migraine headaches and some serious pathology?Tension headache
Migraine headache
Emergency headaches and see your Dr. Immediately
iChronic Headache Relief After Section of Suboccipital Muscle Dural Connections: A Case Report |
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Articles and Research Headaches Dr Hack
Articles and Research Headaches Dr Hack
