Top 5 Headache Relief [VIDEO]
Dr. Cade and Coach Cason share their top 5 things to do for headaches.
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Transcript
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:05:05
Dr. Cade
Hey, you guys! I am Dr. Cade and I am sitting here with Coach Cason, and today we're going to do top five.
00:00:05:12 - 00:00:07:10
Coach Cason
Top five - headaches.
00:00:08:03 - 00:00:30:03
Dr. Cade
Thought we're doing top 5 plays on SportsCenter. All right. Top five on headaches. So I think the most important thing that we can always talk about is the difference between treating headaches, right? Or treating a symptom versus what the root cause is. And so I think that's the most important disclaimer I can say today as we start this video that today we're just going to jump into some simple things that you can do to minimize the pain of the headache, less the root cause.
00:00:30:04 - 00:00:49:12
Dr. Cade
That's a whole different conversation. And obviously we're always going to encourage that, that you figure out why it's there in the first place, because then you can actually get rid of it. You don't have to chase and treat the symptoms for the rest of your life, right? And, you know, I guess we got a Walgreens. I always say right across the street from our parking lot, there's lots of things that will make you forget about the pain of a headache or the pain of whatever else.
00:00:49:12 - 00:00:54:23
Dr. Cade
But as soon as that medication wears off, you're really stuck in the same spot. So well, break the cycle.
00:00:54:27 - 00:00:58:14
Coach Cason
Ibuprofen is not on our list.
00:00:58:15 - 00:01:16:19
Dr. Cade
Ok, ok good - nuh uh. No. So let's go through - top five things. And so most people are dealing with if it's headaches, not migraines, if it's not these intense, crazy sinus kinds of things, is the word a cervicogenic headache. That means that the actual problem is starting in the neck and the symptoms are showing up in a headache.
00:01:16:19 - 00:01:30:19
Dr. Cade
And have you ever had that before? Maybe from a long car ride or a long day of work sitting at a computer. But that tension starts to build. Exactly. You do that so well, man. That's a good look on you. That slouch, that crunch, where maybe can you turn sideways? Can you show on the shoulder, roll those shoulders forward?
00:01:30:19 - 00:01:55:05
Dr. Cade
Yeah. Get a mean look on your face in front of that computer. There it is. That's it. So that type of pressure and stress builds in the back of the neck and comes up in a headache and, you know, easy again to treat the symptoms of the headache. But we got to fix that type of posture because it does it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the neck, the cerebrospinal fluid flow and movement, the muscles, the tendons, ligaments, the disc just snowballs past headaches into much bigger issues.
00:01:55:05 - 00:02:15:23
Dr. Cade
Yeah, so I've got a little pillow in my. Well, let me reverse back before we get into this, getting it checked out, looking at your posture from the outside, from the side, from the front, seeing what's happening there, right? If there's translation, head, lateral flexion, X-rays, if needed to see just how bad it is if it's starting to turn into arthritis, I think that's important.
00:02:15:23 - 00:02:37:23
Dr. Cade
Again, to do it the right way. Okay. So beyond that, what are some things that you can do at home? This is a pillow. I call it pillow. This is not a pillow, this is a pillow. Yeah. Roll. So if you're getting these headaches consistent, especially after a long day of work or studying, if you're a student or, you know, being a mom and taking care of your children, looking down is to lie on your back in bed.
00:02:37:26 - 00:02:51:10
Dr. Cade
No other pillow. Put a roll like this. You can take a pool noodle, roll up a sweatshirt, a hand towel, put it right in the middle of your neck, head up over the top of that. And if you want a bonus, put your arms straight out to the side with your palms up just like that, open up the chest.
00:02:51:19 - 00:03:10:12
Dr. Cade
You can see the extension that's happening in Cason’s neck. That's awesome. And ligaments in the neck hold things stable. They don't become pliable and plastic until we maintain that load or that, that position for 8 minutes or more. So hit 10 minutes. Hit 15 minutes. If you can do longer, do longer. Anything else we want to say about that?
00:03:10:12 - 00:03:11:21
Dr. Cade
I think you've got a couple of things over here.
00:03:11:21 - 00:03:41:21
Coach Cason
Well, we we're fixing posture with that. You know, we're helping the cervical posture, which is a must. How about those things? Well, yeah, these, these. So again, like just with what you're saying, we could we could use self mobilization and massage all day long, but if we're not getting the root of the posture fixed, so what you're going to just be using these like mobilization tools all the time, but these are lacrosse balls and you can actually lay on the lacrosse ball up.
00:03:41:21 - 00:03:45:01
Coach Cason
This would be higher than what Dr. Cade is talking about with the pillow.
00:03:45:01 - 00:03:45:26
Dr. Cade
This is more in the middle of the neck.
00:03:46:04 - 00:04:05:25
Coach Cason
Middle neck. This would be more up in the suboccipital region. And that could give you some release. So maybe release some of the tension in that area. You can put two balls together that might feel better and lay on that. But rolling that around tennis balls might work well, too, because they're softer. If this is too firm...
00:04:05:25 - 00:04:10:08
Dr. Cade
Should that be tender? I mean, we anticipate it's probably going to be tender if they've been dealing with it for a while, right?
00:04:10:17 - 00:04:19:25
Coach Cason
You should feel relief like it should give you headache relief because you're trying to release some of that muscle tension. But that might take a little bit of tenderness, too, to get through that.
00:04:19:25 - 00:04:35:20
Dr. Cade
So yeah, I like it and Cason brought up a good point. You know, unless you want to be doing the pillow and unless you want to be doing the vibration or massage or all these different things forever, you got to fix that posture. You got to fix why those muscles are under tension in the first place. So next one that we've got written down is water and hydration.
00:04:35:20 - 00:04:56:07
Dr. Cade
So we always like to split that up into a couple of different ways. But for today's conversation, we'll talk about quantity and we'll talk about quality. So I'll start with quantity. Most people are not drinking enough water and I should raise my hand. I'm guilty of that, too. It's a difficult, difficult task. So how much water should you be drinking as a decent baseline is to take your body weight, cut that in half.
00:04:56:13 - 00:05:08:15
Dr. Cade
Okay. And that's how many ounces of water you should drink at a minimum. Now, if you're outside working, if you're under more stress, then we need to be going up from there. So that's a baseline. As far as the quantity, how about quality?
00:05:08:21 - 00:05:31:27
Coach Cason
That's a great, great rule. I didn't know that with quantity, but quality is, I think, just as important, maybe more. We have some pretty crappy water in our in our world today. So the quality of it, the filtration of it, the structuring of it, what kind of toxins are in it, and getting those out is huge. But you can also use something like this.
00:05:31:27 - 00:05:54:06
Coach Cason
This is LMNT and this is electrolyte. So it's got sodium, potassium and magnesium in it. And it's at a ratio that is more bio available to what the body can absorb. And so minerals are huge when it comes to water and we need those in our water. So that's a great way to add something to your water, to get your body to absorb it more efficiently.
00:05:54:14 - 00:06:07:15
Dr. Cade
It's such an awesome balance and they've got a great blog on their website. If you want to learn a little bit more from that company. But just as important as what's in there is what's not, and there's no junk in that stuff. That's why we really love it. It's got a unique taste, but it's clean. It's as good as it gets.
00:06:07:21 - 00:06:10:03
Dr. Cade
Yeah. Anything else you want to say on water?
00:06:10:03 - 00:06:11:27
Coach Cason
No, I think that's probably good enough.
00:06:12:03 - 00:06:39:11
Dr. Cade
Okay. So next one I think is what we're all guilty of as well. Where headaches can actually stem from is our digital devices and the overstimulation that happens from that and its impact on the neurologic system. So, you know, a lot of us are working on a computer most of the day. When we're not working on that computer, we're peeking at our phone for notifications and what our neighbors doing and whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever overstimulation from digital devices is not a, not a pretty thing.
00:06:39:11 - 00:06:44:17
Dr. Cade
And so what are some things that people can do to minimize that overstimulation from the digital devices?
00:06:44:17 - 00:07:05:23
Coach Cason
Well, blue light blocking glasses, getting outside... you know, we're sitting under very toxic light, all of us in all these buildings, unless you're going through and changing the light bulbs in your house. But yeah. Putting the phone down, you know. Oh, taking a break. Like I said, get outside. But yeah, I think blue light blockers are what comes to mind first.
00:07:05:24 - 00:07:25:03
Dr. Cade
Love it. Blue light blockers. So you can do that sometimes via the software on the phone or the tablet. If you're in front of a TV a lot of times at night to kind of unwind, then the glasses would be a decent idea. There's tons of information, tons of brands out there, but go check it out. One of the big things is one of our patients just came back from a retreat out in Colorado and he said he had to put his phone down for four - four days? Four days.
00:07:25:03 - 00:07:35:02
Dr. Cade
I don't know how that man survived. It was incredible. He was skin and bones. He was barely hanging on. But we saved him and he brought it back. No, but putting the phone down is a great thing. And we all know we should be doing that. So now...
00:07:35:02 - 00:07:37:14
Coach Cason
He's a changed man.
00:07:37:17 - 00:07:43:25
Dr. Cade
He's a changed man. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. Next one is oxygen. Yeah, I'll let you handle that one.
00:07:43:26 - 00:08:08:09
Coach Cason
Okay. Well, just like hydration and water, some of these very simple but important things, nothing's more important than oxygen. But when we're, when we first have a bad posture, right? And everything's forward, we're not we're not getting air into our lungs like we should. So when you have a headache, you know, something that's going to help probably immediately is just laying down and allowing your body to rest.
00:08:08:09 - 00:08:30:28
Coach Cason
And so we can start to be able to get oxygen into the lower lobes of our lungs, oxygenating our tissues more. That's going to relieve some of the tension in our neck and shoulders. But yeah, just focusing on breathing, focusing on belly breathing, diaphragmatic breathing allows oxygen to get into those lower lobes and get into the tissue.
00:08:31:01 - 00:08:49:12
Dr. Cade
I love it. You know, and again, linking what we were just talking about with oxygen to the digital devices and back to number one with the posture. Yeah, we just cannot expand our lungs to get enough oxygen into our system when we're in this state, right? So I love it. Obviously, you know, the improper balance of oxygen is going to change the pH
00:08:50:02 - 00:09:08:03
Dr. Cade
And if you're curious about how much that's affecting you, you can buy a little pH test strip off of Amazon and test and see what things look like. Also, if you're getting a lot of pressure here, kind of in the front, just on top of your collarbones, you know, difficulty kind of moving side to side that lets us know that you're overusing kind of the shoulder breathing technique.
00:09:08:10 - 00:09:10:26
Dr. Cade
Right? Instead of using that diaphragm to expand.
00:09:10:26 - 00:09:28:03
Coach Cason
Sure. And this gets into fight or flight and rest and digest. And when we're in the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, everything is more up, more breathing with the upper lobes of our lungs and some of our neck muscles. So yeah, just calming down, calming down, laying down, relaxing.
00:09:28:07 - 00:09:37:00
Dr. Cade
You did such a good job with that visualization. So hopefully people are watching and not just listening. But, you know, we all have felt that we can do a single video without mentioning fight or flight, can we?
00:09:37:05 - 00:09:37:26
Coach Cason
No, it’s everything.
00:09:38:15 - 00:10:12:27
Dr. Cade
Next one. Is blood sugar, isn't it? Diet. That's another big one. Most of us are so busy that we struggle keeping up with the meal and sometimes if we do get a meal, it's a quick meal that isn't necessarily full of nutrition. And so, yeah, blood sugar spikes, blood sugar drops just all over the place. So coming up with a plan, if you having we call it junk food for healthy people, but having healthy things around if you're on a long car ride or if you have a marathon session at work or whatever, having something around that's healthy that you can grab quickly, I think is a genius idea.
00:10:12:27 - 00:10:21:25
Dr. Cade
To modulate blood sugar and avoid those big spikes and those big crashes. Yeah, I think we talked about coffee. We want to mention that one too. I think most of us are dependent on that.
00:10:21:25 - 00:10:26:02
Coach Cason
Yeah, no, I don't. I don't remember talking about that. So you should probably take that.
00:10:26:11 - 00:10:44:11
Dr. Cade
You know, caffeine can play a role in headaches as well, but I think most of us are not drinking coffee. Coffee is a side effect or a side ingredient in the sugary drink that most of us are getting that or calling, you know, and that's causing a spike and that's causing the crash, too. So watch. We know this kind of stuff.
00:10:44:11 - 00:10:54:07
Dr. Cade
But, you know, are you brave enough to do the inventory to look through some of these things? Yeah. To get to the root and to help free yourself from perhaps the, the binds of the headache. Mm hmm. Right?
00:10:54:11 - 00:11:20:19
Coach Cason
Yeah. Sugar can be very, very toxic and very inflammatory. And so just eat real food - JERF. There we go. Dr. Cade's acronym can really help. And one thing that I've learned a lot from my wife is and I think this goes for women even more is eating food in a ratio of whole quantities. So fats, sugars and carbohydrates.
00:11:20:19 - 00:11:36:23
Coach Cason
And so eating like a normal meal, you know, or eating those three things in combination. So you're just not having the coffee with the sugar that's going to cause this huge spike. You're getting the real food that helps your body to metabolize and digest properly.
00:11:37:12 - 00:11:39:24
Dr. Cade
I like it. So there's five things in review.
00:11:40:24 - 00:11:41:10
Coach Cason
Posture.
00:11:42:09 - 00:12:12:08
Dr. Cade
Number two, water. Number three, overstimulation from digital devices. Four is oxygen and breathing, and five is blood sugar and food. So don't think you've got to be perfect. Start chipping away. Might be one of those things on that list. That's the biggest one for you. And just a small little bit of action might change everything and free you up so that you can again not be weighted down and having those headaches, chasing around when you're trying to spend time with your spouse or trying to be productive at work or whatever the case is, or you might have to dig a little bit deeper and go through these things or again, get checked, get an x-ray
00:12:12:14 - 00:12:17:29
Dr. Cade
to see just how good or just how bad things really are underneath the hood there. So anything else you want to say?
00:12:18:03 - 00:12:18:20
Coach Cason
Hopefully this helps!
00:12:18:20 - 00:12:23:21
Dr. Cade
Thanks, you guys. God bless you and we'll see on the next one.
Interested in an appointment? We offer a FREE 15-Minute Consult! Call 239-774-5433 to schedule.