Migraine is a draining
condition for its sufferers. It is expensive in terms of
pain, money, and pharmacological use necessity. Drugs are still
the “gold standard” of care. Patients often ask their
migraine healthcare providers for non-drug alternatives.
Burlington and Hamilton migraine sufferers want options!
Spinal Care Clinic puts forward that exercise may be one
such positive choice.
EXERCISE FOR CHRONIC PAIN
Migraine is, for most Burlington and Hamilton migraine sufferers,
a chronic pain condition. It is not usually a one
time situation. Chronic pain affects
the nervous system as well as the specific pain-generating
issue. Researchers explained 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 declining disability. These
changes do not come overnight. They come with
long-term, consistent, individualized exercise resulting
in improvement in pain and function. (1) Spinal Care Clinic tells
our Burlington and Hamilton chiropractic patients with all sorts of
conditions that it’s slow and steady commitment that results in desired
outcomes.
EXERCISE FOR MIGRAINE BEING STUDIED
Researchers and migraine sufferers alike hold out hope for a
simple, low-cost approach to migraine care. For
example, a recent comparison study of
neck-specific exercise versus sham ultrasound to decrease
the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks. (2) A recent meta-analysis
in Headache explained that aerobic exercise for migraine patients
decreased the number of migraine days. (3) These are beneficial
outcomes for Burlington and Hamilton migraine treatment.
EXERCISE BENEFITS: Overall and Migraine Specific
Burlington and Hamilton chiropractic patients are often
urged to exercise. Exercise appears to be a endorsed
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 affects
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 does this?
“Sufficiently rigorous aerobic exercise” brought about statistically
significant reduction in migraine frequency, intensity and
duration. That is welcomed by Burlington and Hamilton
migraine sufferers! Naturally, higher intensity exercise seems
to allow more benefit. Pharmacological drugs like topiramate were
noted to be better than exercise, but including
exercise into its use was suggested to be beneficial. Migraine sufferers
who also experience neck pain or tension headache are reported as
benefiting from exercise. Low impact is worthwhile
if high impact exercise is not doable. (4) Spinal Care Clinic concurs
with the researchers’ bottom-line: exercise is a reasonable
evidence-based recommendation for migraine prevention.
CONTACT Spinal Care Clinic
Listen to this PODCAST
with Dr. David Kulla on The
Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he presents
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.