What the Doctors Do Not Tell You About Headaches

I was moved to write this blog today after watching CBS news in the morning. They had a headache specialist on their show being interviewed about headaches and what caused them. No where in her talk did she say one word about bad breathing patterns i.e. neurosis breathing or unnecessary muscle tension in the head neck and shoulders. I am not a headache specialist in her league. But I do know that Dr Janet Travell, in a landmark book published in 1983, showed the relationship between muscle tension and head, neck, and shoulder pain. My question is, why did the headache specialist not talk about that relationship and that most people who suffer headaches, also have that muscle tension pattern? In my experience of working with people with all kinds of headaches, I have not seen one person who suffered headaches that did not have the muscle trigger points or knots that Dr Travell discovered. You can find information on her findings on referred pain patterns at the following links.
http://www.triggerpointbook.com/triggerp.htm

http://www.triggerpointbook.com/headache.htm

I know there are many reasons for a headache, but why not first see if the headache can be helped by the most obvious cause for it? Referred pain caused my muscle tension. Remember OCCAM'S RAZOR, named after William of Occam. Given a choice between two explanations, choose the simplest -- the explanation which requires the fewest assumptions. And I would add less money and time to treat.
Now, what role does breathing have in relationship to headaches. Get a mirror. Look at your head neck and shoulders, and chest. Take a deep full breath and hold your breath at the top of the inhale. Look at the mirror. Most of you will have seen your chest and shoulders rise up. You would see the muscles in your neck tense. You would notice your lower jaw push into you upper jaw. Release your inhale. (smile) Notice the illustration of referred pain patterns below. Can you see the relationship between how you breathe and muscle tension in the head, neck and shoulders? I hope you can because it is there.
The headache specialist reported that exercise can cause headaches in some people. True, but did they examine how these people where breathing and holding their head neck and shoulders. The answer is NO!!!!! WHY????

My belief is that the business aspects of the medical community have very little interest in telling the American people about the role of trigger points and the cause of the trigger points in the cause and treatment of almost all headaches. Why? Follow the money. The treatment of headaches is a multi-billion dollar industry. If the medical community dealt with headaches as a bad breathing indicator and a muscle tension problem where would the money go? It would not go to the pharmaceutical industry or the hospitals or doctors. Let me see now, would they give up a multi-billion dollar industry to give you what you really need to help your headaches?What do you think. Hmmm, NO, I do not think they have or they will. That would give them a big financial headache. The money spent of their services and pills would go back in the patients pocket and away from the pharmaceutical industry. What do you think?

I talked with a Korean doctor who was working at the Cleveland Clinic many years ago and we talked about breathing patterns and muscle tension in relationship to headache treatment. He said if he brought this kind of educational treatment up he would be out of a job. There is way to much money in pharmaceutical treatment of headache for any real hope of telling people with headaches about breathing and muscle tension. When it is mentioned it is only in passing and is not actively publicized.

The above illustrations are from Dr Travell's book on referred pain patterns. The x is the place on a muscle that has tension or a knot. The red is where the pain from the knot manifests. If you get headaches, and the pain is in the area of the red on one or more of these illustrations, press around your own muscles where Dr Travell has placed a X. If you get sharp pain, you have a trigger point. Most people will find they have many trigger points.

I urge you to check anyone who has headaches and wants help for trigger points. If you have them, or a friend or loved one has them, what do you do? I would say first, you change your breathing pattern to diaphragmatic breathing See the following link from this site.

http://riverschihouse.blogspot.com/2007/05/breathing.html

Stress in all it's forms causes us to go from diaphragmatic breathing to neurosis breathing. We have to get to the point where we can check our breathing as soon as we notice we are in a stressful situation and if we are breathing badly, change back to good breathing as soon as possible and make sure we stay that way. The physical/mental/emotional effects of stress will be minimized if you do that. I urge you to do Sky Nourishes Earth chi kung untill it becomes second nature to you especially during and after stressful situations.

OK so now you know what can cause most headache pain. So what can you do during a headache? If you want to help someone who has a headache, tell them about the role of muscle tension and breathing. Ask them to take a deep breathe. Show them in the mirror how their chest and shoulders rise as they inhale. Show them how their neck tightens and their lower jaw pushes into their upper jaw. Then teach then Sky Nourishes Earth chi kung. While, they do diaphragmatic or belly breathing and consciously relax their muscles sit with them and place your fingers on the upper sides of the nails of their middle fingers. Those points are called Bladder 17 points in the Koryo Hand Therapy paradigm. See the photo of my hand below. You can find more information on Koryo Hand Therapy on this blog. Touch Bladder 17 points on both hands for a few minutes or more until their head pain is completely gone and then keep doing it for a few more minutes. If the headache returns, repeat the treatment. The key is to help the person understand the need to change their unconscious habits relating to breathing and muscle tension. If you, or the people you are trying to help, can keep belly breathing and keep muscles relaxed, you will have few if any headaches in the future. If you, or they, go back to bad breathing and not noticing and releasing muscles tension, the pain will sooner or later return. Change of breathing and noticing muscle tension MUST become normal for the headaches not to reoccur.

If you have a headache or are filled with tension, put your thumb under one of your middle fingers and treat your own bladder 17 points on the side of your body that has the most head pain. The photo below shows how to do this self-treatment.If you do not have a headache, but are very stressed, either hand will be fine. But while you treat yourself, check your breathing pattern and notice and release unnecessary muscle tension. I recommend Sky Nourishes Earth chi kung while you do this self-treatment.

Now you know. It is on you now. If your head hurts and you go running to the doctor and get expensive medicine and do not have much money left for other things, so be it. But the next time your head hurts, Try something different. Put away the pills and try checking out your breathing and releasing unnecessary muscle tension in your head neck and shoulders. I hope some people use this. Let me know if you do.
My friend Chamki just sent me the following. I love it and it fits so well into this blog.

"I've got a problem, Doc," the new patient began. "We all have problems," replied the doctor, smiling his assurance. "My problem is this, Doc:
I get migraine headaches every time I think of my wife.
I break out in a rash every time I think of my job.
I get cold sweats every time I think of my bank account.
Talk about problems! Boy, have I got them!" "Every problem has its answer, of course,
and I understand this one perfectly," said the psychiatrist, nodding.
"You will need a hundred sessions on the couch,
at seventy-five dollars per session." The patient gulped.
"Well, Doc," he said after a painful pause, "that solves your problem.
Now, how about mine?"

Here is another story that is worth reading. If you are a doctor do not get to uptight. This is just an allegory and only apply to some doctors.

The doctors will die from starvation if nobody falls sick. The doctor's profession is a very contradictory profession. He helps people to come out of sickness, knowing perfectly well he is destroying his own business. That's why poor people get healthy quickly; they are not much of a business. Rich people... the doctor helps the process linger on. I have heard about a doctor who sent his son to medical college. The son came back, and the old man said, "Now that you are a doctor, I can retire. I am really tired" -- because the doctor's profession is such; in the middle of the night he may be called, in the cold night with snow falling, he will be called, and he has to go. Day and night, twenty-four hours he is on duty. "So I am really tired. You have come, now you take charge of the clinic." The boy was very happy. After three, four days the father asked him, "How are things going?" He said, "Really great. The woman that you could not cure for thirty years, I have cured in three days." The father said, "My God, that was our basic income! That woman I have been keeping sick for thirty years. She has so much money, she can afford to remain sick for three hundred years. You idiot -- you cured her! All your education has come from her sickness. Who do you think was sending you money to study in a medical college? It was that woman. If this is the way you are going to behave with my patients, perhaps you should retire; I will do my work. You will destroy the whole business." The boy can be forgiven -- he was not yet aware of the profession. He had just acquired the medical knowledge, but he was not aware that there is a business side to it. He said, "I can understand. Now I know why you were sending me so much money." His father said, "It was all coming from that woman, and that woman could afford it, there was no problem -- I just had to keep her sick." by_Osho