As a Myotherapist, I see many clients who walk in with headaches and general muscle tension. Headache referral patterns are the locations that one may feel their headache and can be used to determine which muscle/s to treat to best relieve the pain. It is very rewarding as a therapist to relieve someone of their headache. Migraines however are a little more complicated, especially when they are chronic and have a debilitating effect.

Three months ago, a 17 year old girl called Emma (pseudonym) walked into the clinic reporting of chronic migraines since the age of 12. Emma had tried everything; she had her eyes tested, regularly saw a chiropractor and tried a variety of medications. Unfortunately she was averaging two migraines per week which were often debilitating, forcing her to go to bed. Her condition was effecting her schooling. Emma and her mum were very worried about the effect the migraines would play on her final stressful years at school when she most needed to be attentive and present. When Emma and I first sat down together to discuss her condition, we discussed possible causes for her migraines. She was not a teeth grinder and told me that they often came on after looking at screens all day at school.

Her posture was not great and we couldn’t pin point the exact cause. We started to develop a treatment plan that involved her seeing me once a week for 5 weeks. In that time we assessed her range of motion in neck and spine. I used a variety of hands on techniques including trigger point release, and working to release the fascia which surrounds the muscle tissue. We started to see results when the migraines became less frequent and less intense when they did occur. I gave Emma some exercises to do at home to improve her posture which she would do every day to maintain the muscle work I was using on her once a week. Emma was diligent with her exercises and noticed an improvement in her posture and a deeper awareness of her body. Even seeing Emma sitting in the chair opposite me week to week I could see her shoulders retracting further back and her head stacking higher on her shoulders. The muscle patterns became obvious after treating Emma for some time. The weeks she came to see me and had not had a migraine, her muscles felt good from her work at home and the previous week’s treatment. When Emma had a migraine during the week, I could feel certain muscles had seized up again and needed releasing. When the muscles were still feeling good from the previous week I was able to maintain those muscles with a small amount of treatment and could then treat muscles further down the spine. As the weeks went by, I introduced myofascial dry needling into our treatment plan. These are the same as acupuncture needles, yet Myotherapist’s use a different technique by applying the needle directly to trigger points within the muscle to send a twitch or deep ache sensation which releases the muscle. Emma responded very well to this modality. We combined soft tissue muscle work with dry needling along with at home exercises.

We gradually cut down Emma’s treatments to fortnightly as she was continuing to improve. Now Emma has cut down her treatments to once a month, experiencing a migraine on average once every 2 weeks and opposed to twice in one week. The intensity of the migraines have decreased significantly, to the point where Emma can still function successfully. We still have not completely eradicated the migraines but we are well on the way. Emma and her mum are very happy with the results and say the difference is incomparable. Whenever we can, I believe it is important to seek out natural methods of treatment before medication. This is just one example out of many that help to demonstrate the effectiveness of such treatments, and I hope you too will be encouraged to consider Myotherapy for your health in the future.

Please note all our patients history and treatments are confidential, however should we find an interesting case we do like to share our outcomes. Patients consent is always given prior to us publishing a case study.

By Claire Adamson

Myotherapist