by zac mackenzie
This week I had the pleasure of treating a young man who suffered from recurrent headaches. These headaches would come on usually every 2-3 months and would generally settle within 1-2 weeks. He was extremely physically active and these headaches would often occur after a gym session that involved a lot of overhead exercises. He seemed frustrated with the recurrence as it stopped him from training and although he knew that the pain would subside with treatment he was more interested in getting an understanding of how to prevent this from happening again.
On assessment, I found that most of his symptoms were on the left side of his head and neck and he was restricted in movements of his neck towards that side. A quick look at his neck muscle function also demonstrated that he had some weakness in his neck muscles which is a common finding in neck related headache patients. We discussed a treatment plan looking at firstly reducing his symptoms with some hands-on treatment as well as some home exercises this week with the aim of getting in the gym to go over his technique with overhead exercises next week when his symptoms had improved.
We also spoke about long term treatment of his headache symptoms and that once his symptoms had resolved it would be worth investing time into a neck and upper back strengthening program which will prevent the headaches from occurring again. We discussed the research surrounding recurring neck related headaches and how often these are linked to neck and upper back weakness. We will aim to address these deficits through a targeted strengthening program.
I provided him with some manual therapy which seemed to reduce his neck pain and headache and prescribed some neck and back mobility exercises to do at home.
I look forward to seeing how he has progressed next week.