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Headaches

A headache is a pain in your head or face that's often described as a pressure that's throbbing, constant, sharp or dull. While some headaches are just a minor inconvenience, others can be completely debilitating - preventing you from work, sleep and the activities you enjoy.

Causes of Headaches

We all get headaches, but sometimes, their recurrence or extremely painful presentation could cause concern. Your headache can be:

  • Tension headache: results from stress and feels like your head is getting squeezed.

  • Migraine: a pounding, throbbing pain with sensitivity to light, smells, and sounds.

  • Cluster headaches: sharp, burning pain on the side of the head, back of the eyes, and forehead that happens at the same time of the day or night.

  • Chronic headaches: ongoing headaches that last days or sometimes longer.

  • Rebound headaches: headaches that return after medication as a withdrawal reaction.
     

Regardless of the symptoms, headaches cause discomfort, severely impact your performance at work or school and make it impossible to enjoy time with family and friends. Migraines can cause sensitivity that will prevent you from performing daily tasks, while chronic and tension headaches may cause you to rely on medication and further worsen your condition because you’re not getting at the underlying root cause.

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How Fortitude & Freedom Can Help
Relieve Headaches

Dr. Jake Pawol, PT, DPT, OCS is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and the Owner of Fortitude & Freedom.  He provides comprehensive care to relieve the most debilitating headaches to patients across Des Moines.  He offers personalized care that explores the causes and underlying conditions and prescribes treatment that provides lasting long-term relief. Your headache treatment from Fortitude & Freedom in Waukee involves:

  • Thorough evaluation, including a posture and movement analysis

  • Education on stress management, sleep hygiene, nutrition and exercise

  • Joint and soft tissue mobilization of the face, head, neck, shoulders, and torso, plus training on how to perform on your own.  

  • Regenerative dry needling of the face, head, neck, shoulders, and torso

  • Corrective exercise to develop strength and mobility of the neck, shoulders, upper back and trunk to prevent headaches from coming back.

 

You don’t have to power through the headache silently.  And you don’t need to depend on medication, which only masks the symptoms temporarily.  Fortitude & Freedom can get you healed and back to work or the activities you love without being limited by painful headaches.  Because life is too short to avoid doing the activities you love with the people you love!

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