Migraine is a frustrating
condition for its sufferers. It’s expensive in terms of
pain, money, and pharmacological use need. Drugs are still
the “gold standard” of care. Patients often request choices from their
migraine healthcare providers for non-drug alternatives.
Ashburn migraine sufferers want alternative ideas!
Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn puts forward that exercise may be one
such useful alternative.
EXERCISE FOR CHRONIC PAIN
Migraine is, for most Ashburn migraine sufferers,
a chronic pain condition. It is not usually a one
time situation. Chronic pain disrupts
the nervous system and the specific pain-generator. Researchers described evidence that exercise helps a
variety of chronic pain conditions including migraine directly and indirectly
with a goal of changing the cycle of pain,
sedentariness, and worsening disability. These
changes don’t come overnight. They come with
long-term, regular, individualized exercise bringing about improvement in pain and function. (1) Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn tells
our Ashburn chiropractic patients with all sorts of
conditions that it is slow and steady commitment that gets the result.
EXERCISE FOR MIGRAINE BEING STUDIED
Researchers and migraine sufferers alike hold out hope for a
simple, inexpensive approach to migraine care. Case in point, a new comparison study of
neck-specific exercise versus sham ultrasound to decrease
the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks. (2) A new meta-analysis
in Headache reported that aerobic exercise for migraine patients
dropped the number of migraine days. (3) These are beneficial
outcomes for Ashburn migraine treatment.
EXERCISE BENEFITS: Overall and Migraine Specific
Ashburn chiropractic patients are manytimes
urged to exercise. Exercise appears to be a recommended
panacea for everything from back pain to migraine to depression to neck pain
and so much more. Why? It works. Exercise suppresses inflammation
via reduction of inflammatory modulators (many cytokines) and stress hormones
(growth hormone and cortisol). Exercise constructively impacts
the microvascular system that possibly influences
a certain type of cortical spreading depression. Specific
to migraine, exercise helped migraine self-efficacy by allowing
the migraine sufferer to have a sense of control which reduced
migraine burden. How much exercise produces this type of effect?
“Sufficiently rigorous aerobic exercise” resulted in statistically
significant decrease in migraine frequency, intensity and
duration. That’s welcomed by Ashburn
migraine sufferers! Naturally, higher intensity exercise appears
to bring about more benefit. Pharmacological drugs like topiramate were
noted to be better than exercise, but including
exercise into its use was implied as being beneficial. Migraine sufferers
who also have neck pain or tension headache are reported to benefit from exercise. Low impact is valuable
if high impact exercise is not possible. (4) Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn concurs
with the researchers’ bottom-line: exercise is a reasonable
evidence-based recommendation for migraine prevention.
CONTACT Poulin Chiropractic of Herndon and Ashburn
Listen to this PODCAST
with Dr. David Kulla on The
Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes
how he followed The
Cox®
Technic System of Spinal Pain Management for his patient with
migraine which included Cox® Technic spinal manipulation
as well as exercise for appreciated relief by his patient.