This morning I was watching my grandson’s soccer game and I ended up helping one of the parents who had a serious headache that ended up being the result of tight muscles pulling his cervical vertebrae out of alignment. He was amazed when I started to tell him about the levator scapulae muscle and how it will cause his first three cervical vertebrae push the bones directly into his spinal cord, right where it leaves his brain and starts down his back. We had a pretty long talk about it and he was saying that he had no idea how nerves and muscles work or why muscles can cause pain.
Then we started to talk about his car-shopping week. He knows all about every tiny facet of a car and what he wants to get. I started to think about the vast majority of people who know all about cars, and know nothing about their own body. It doesn’t make sense, we can buy a new car when the old one falls apart, but we can’t buy a new body. Yet, most people (and I admit that I was once one of these people) don’t know anything about nutrition (the fuel for our body), or our muscles (the drive-mechanism of our body), and even less about the nervous system (the electrical system of the body).
Now, I’m not saying that we all need to become experts about each of the systems of the body, but it certainly is worthwhile to do some reading and have an understanding of why we have pain, etc.
Too many people are quick to take over-the-counter drugs for pain (without even considering the horrible potential side-effects), or even prescription drugs. When you watch a well-done ad on TV, have you ever listened to the end of the commercial, when they start to list off all the potential dangers of the drug they are pushing? That should scare the wits out of you, but most people don’t listen, or they just assume that it can’t happen to them.
In any case, this man’s headache was caused by a spasm in a shoulder muscle, and simply applying sustained pressure on the knot for about 3 minutes totally eliminated the pain. He told me that he gets headaches frequently and normally ends up taking drugs for a day or so before the pain subsides. I taught him the simple technique and now he’s going to be able to stop the headaches as soon as they stop, and also stop filling his body with drugs that can cause internal bleeding without symptoms.
I sure can’t help you with everything that happens in your body (although learning about nutrition could definitely prevent a lot of serious problems), but I can help you with the majority of the causes of joint pain and headaches.
A great place to start your search is by reading articles that focus on the way the body works. The less you take drugs the better off you’ll be, and the more you know about the workings of your body the more you’ll avoid pain and illness.
Wishing you well,
Julie