Do you know physical therapy can benefit you in case of migraine headaches? Yes, it may give you several benefits, like decreasing pain, managing future migraine attacks, and helping improve your mobility. Physical therapists assess your spine observation and design a personalized plan depending on your requirement.
Physical Therapy To Diagnose The Migraine
Suppose you are experiencing a headache migraine and deciding to visit a physical therapist to diagnose the exact issue. In that case, the therapist will asses you with an interview to know the symptoms, duration of pain, and your medical history, if any. Â
This phase includes some questions about the onset of your headache pain, medication tried, symptoms, behavior, and diagnosis studies that have been obtained. Your physical therapist may ask about the previous treatment you already tried for your pain and review your surgical and medical history.
The Components of Physical Therapist Evaluation Include
- Posture assessment,
- Measurement of range of motion,Â
- Strength measurements,
- Palpation of the skull.
Physical therapists always develop a personalized care plan and treatment once the evaluation has been completed. It helps to rehabilitate the goals designed for your migraine headache. After the plan design, the physical therapist starts treating migraine, which may include various stretching and exercises.
How Does This Therapy Affect Headache Migraine?
This migraine can affect the central nervous system of the human body, including the spinal cord and brain. Also, the peripheral nerves and blood vessels can get affected by it. All these situations cause neurological symptoms.Â
Healthcare professionals refer to migraine drugs that help the nervous system treat pain. But unlike such medications, This therapy also focuses on treating the joints and muscles outside the spinal cord and joints.
This therapy approaches effectively helps to lessen the pain during migraine attacks. Especially such techniques are helpful if used at the beginning of a migraine. Some of them are as follows:Â
- Massage – Physical therapists ease your migraine by performing certain massage that works on migraine symptoms
- Manual cervical traction- The traction process can help to ease neck pain from migraine issues.
- Self-help methods- This method utilizes hot and cold equipment to ease the pain. It efficiently works on self-relaxation.
- Stretching – Basic stretching exercises help to feel better in migraine. It works on specific pain in migraine.
- Electrical Stimulation – Electrical stimulation like transcutaneous neuromuscular electrical stimulation (TENS) can be applied to your neck to reduce pain and improve symptoms.
Along with the above techniques, other techniques such as posture correction, relaxation technique, and exercise and cardiovascular conditioning used in this therapy give you effective benefits regarding such a migraine.
Benefits of This Therapy for Migraine
Many healthcare professionals suggest this therapy in combination with regular medications as a treatment plan for headaches and migraines. It happens because of some potential benefits of it that help to reduce the pain like:
- Treated headache migraine-related musculoskeletal problems
- Ease the vestibular symptoms such as loss of balance, vertigo, dizziness, and sensitivity to motion
- Improve the posture control impairment so helps to maintain stability.
Does It Help Everyone With Migraine?
Since physical therapies for migraines addresses your joints and muscles, each individual’s response to the treatment may differ. Your success with it depends on how much your muscles and joints are involved in your migraine pain.
Physical therapies approach as a headache migraine treatment might not be as effective if you:
- Rarely have migraines, as they happen once a month, give or take.
- Have classic symptoms of migraine-like neurologic signs such as aur with clear triggers
How Long Should Therapy Last?
Most therapists design a four to six weeks plan to treat the symptoms of this migrane. Patients may experience relief within a few weeks after starting the therapy process.Â
Some people might go through the symptoms and migraine headache pain for several months after starting the therapy sessions. It will be adequate to use the techniques taught by physical therapists to control the exacerbations of specific symptoms.Â
Your healthcare professional or therapist can give a clear idea regarding the duration of this therapy should last? In any case, if you are experiencing the symptoms of migraine headaches after your therapy sessions have ended, it is recommended to revisit your therapist. You can ask them for other treatment options for migraine headache pain.Â
Risks of Physical Therapy for Migraine
Talking to a healthcare professional before starting any new migraine treatment is always recommended. An expert can help decide whether this therapy could help with your symptoms.Â
Some patients suffering from such conditions have exercise-triggered migraine attacks. So, this therapy can make some people’s symptoms worse.
As per the study, it has been observed that people with headaches and migraine have worsened symptoms from physical activity. Also, those with exercise-triggered migraines had neck pain as a beginning symptom during regular attacks.
