When taking a patient’s medical history I often ask if they experience headaches or migraines. This is usually the point where I get asked if osteopaths can help with headaches. It’s always difficult to give people definitive answers as new evidence comes out every day. Treating headaches successfully doesn’t necessarily count as evidence, so I decided to have a look at some newer research so I can better answer this common question.
The lifetime prevalence of headaches are 93% in men and 99% in women, meaning nearly everyone experiences a headache at some point and sadly a lot of people suffer in silence and never seek any treatment.1 The most common form of headache is tension-type headache (TTH) which has a lifetime prevalence as high as 86%1 in women. Osteopaths are trained to diagnose what type of headache patients present with and check for red flags such as fever or weight loss that can indicate serious disease warranting referral. Generally people either have TTH/tension type headaches, migraines or a different type of headache altogether which often requires referral to a GP. Osteopaths also commonly treat migraines as well but we’ll leave them for another time.
Once the diagnosis of TTHs is made osteopaths are then able to treat the causes of TTH which are the soft tissues of the head and neck as well as the central nervous system.2 Osteopaths may also offer advice about addressing exacerbating factors such as sleep disorders, stress and unhealthy eating habits. Many osteopaths, myself included, pride themselves on their ability to detect dysfunction in different areas of the body that can contribute to issues in the central nervous system or put increased load on the soft tissues of the head and neck which may be the difference between intermittent headaches as opposed to more persistent ones.
Manual therapy, which includes osteopathy, is the most common non-medical treatment of recurrent headaches and studies now show that we can help headache intensity and/or frequency, reduce medication consumption and improve quality of life.3 A 2015 study showed that TTH responds to manual therapy better than pharmacological drug care in the short term and has similar effectiveness long term.4 A systematic review of randomized controlled trials from 2000 to 2013 showed that patients receiving manual therapy showed better progress than those receiving convention (pharmaceutical) treatment or placebo.3 There is also much less risk of developing headaches that result from medication over use, which are notoriously difficult to treat.
So can osteopaths treat headaches? Absolutely! It is frustrating to hear that people suffer from headaches and never seek any care, especially when it impacts on their quality of life, as I’ve always known headaches respond well to treatment. There is now good evidence that the most common form of headaches respond well to osteopathy treatment, so if you or somebody else you know suffer from headaches your local osteopath can help.
- Rasmussen BK, Jensen R, Schroll M, Olesen J. Epidemiology of headache in a general population – a prevalence study. J Clin Epidemiol Vol. 44, No. 11, pp 1147-1157, 1991
- Fernández-de-Las-Peñas C, Courtney CA. J Man Manip Ther. Volume 22, Issue 1, pp 44-50, 2014
- Lopez CL, de la Hoz Aizpurua JL, Grande JP, Fernandez de las Penas C. Efficacy of manual therapy in the treatment of tension-type headache. A systematic review from 2000 to 2013. Neurology, volume 31, issue 6, pp 357-369, 2013
- Mesa-Jiménez JA, Lozano-López C, Angulo-Diaz-Parreno S, Rodríguez-Fernández AL, De-la-Hoz_Aizpurua JL, Fernandez-de-Las-Penas C. Multimodal manual therapy vs. pharmacological care for management of tension type headache: A meta-analysis of randomized trials. Cephalalgia Vol. 35, issue 14, pp 1323-32, 2015