Migraines

If you have chronic migraines that often come with neck tension and pressure, there is a good chance we can cut your number of migraine days in half.

How?

Migraines affect nerves and blood vessels in the brain.  Experts agree on that.  Migraines can have a long list of triggers, including weather, food sensitivities, hormones, and other factors.  Experts agree on that as well.  However, what is often overlooked is that the pressure and tension that can accompany migraine headaches looks an awfully lot like tension headaches.  It's as if tension headaches can provoke or worsen migraine headaches.  So my approach is to treat the myofascial trigger points in the head and neck that lead to tension headaches, and that calms down one of your triggers.  The result is fewer headache days per month.

For real?

It's been true for every migraine patient I've treated so far. 

If this works, why isn't my doctor recommending it?

Excellent question.  Several possible answers.  The first relates to "silos of knowledge".  You may have the absolute best physician in the world, but chances are the medical journals he/she reads are not the same journals that publish the latest research on myofascial pain, i.e., the pain caused by myofascial trigger points in muscles.  In other words, physicians are very good at what they do, but they don't do muscles.

The second possible answer is a more difficult problem.  Suppose your physician wants to send you to a physical therapist that treats migraines with trigger point dry needling.  Does your area even have a physical therapist who does this?  And is good at it?  Probably not.

Why not?

Most physical therapists are generalists, not specialists.  That is, an outpatient physical therapist is expected to be able to treat any physical impairment at all.  That breadth of knowledge leaves little opportunity to develop the depth of expertise in a particular condition that they would get from treating one condition all day every day.

There are different kinds of dry needling.  Some physical therapists are taught to insert multiple needles into standard locations on the body without regard to where that particular patient's trigger points are located.  They are taught to leave the needles inserted for some number of minutes, and to remove them later.  There are legitimate reasons to do that style of needling.  Clearing trigger points is not one of them.

Trigger point dry needling takes time.  Inserting a needle in a muscle close to a trigger point helps a little.  Inserting it precisely into a trigger point, so that you get a quick muscle twitch, works dramatically better when the pain is caused by trigger points.  And that kind of precision takes longer than putting needles into standard locations.

Most physical therapists don't have time.  Most clinics will not allow a therapist to treat a patient one-on-one for the whole visit.  Because insurance pays so little that the clinic would go out of business if they treated patients one-on-one all day.

But you do have time?

I make time.  I keep my practice small and simple so I can make business decisions that align with my values.  Including my desire to help you get better, as much as I can, as fast as I can.  And that requires one-on-one attention.

How do I know if you're the right therapist for me?

We talk.  I ask questions.  You tell me your story.  We go from there.

Ready to see if we're a good fit?