Migraine is a draining
condition for its sufferers. It’s expensive in terms of
pain, money, and pharmacological use necessity. Drugs remain
the “gold standard” of care. Patients often ask their
migraine healthcare providers for non-drug alternatives.
West Des Moines migraine sufferers want alternative ideas!
Executive Chiropractic of Iowa puts forward that exercise may be one
such useful choice.
EXERCISE FOR CHRONIC PAIN
Migraine is, for most West Des Moines migraine sufferers,
a chronic pain condition. It’s not usually a one
time situation. Chronic pain disrupts
the nervous system and the specific pain-generator. Researchers explained evidence that exercise helps a
variety of chronic pain conditions including migraine directly and indirectly
with an aim to change the cycle of pain,
sedentariness, and degenerating disability. These
changes don’t come overnight. They come with
long-term, consistent, individualized exercise giving rise to improvement in pain and function. (1) Executive Chiropractic of Iowa reminds
our West Des Moines 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 set against sham ultrasound to reduce
the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks. (2) A recent meta-analysis
in Headache reported that aerobic exercise for migraine patients
dropped the number of migraine days. (3) These are valuable
outcomes for West Des Moines migraine treatment.
EXERCISE BENEFITS: Overall and Migraine Specific
West Des Moines chiropractic patients are manytimes
encouraged 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 stifles inflammation
via reduction of inflammatory modulators (many cytokines) and stress hormones
(growth hormone and cortisol). Exercise positively impacts
the microvascular system that certainly affects
a certain type of cortical spreading depression. Migraine specifically, exercise benefited migraine self-efficacy by permitting
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 drop in migraine frequency, intensity and
duration. That’s appreciated by West Des Moines
migraine sufferers! Naturally, higher intensity exercise seems
to bring about more benefit. Pharmacological drugs like topiramate were
noted to be superior to exercise, but adding exercise to 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) Executive Chiropractic of Iowa concurs
with the researchers’ bottom-line: exercise is a reasonable
evidence-based recommendation for migraine prevention.
CONTACT Executive Chiropractic of Iowa
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 incorporated Cox® Technic spinal manipulation
as well as exercise for appreciated relief by his patient.