Chiropractor for headaches and migraines in Melbourne

Not all headaches are the same headache

Headache is one of the most common health complaints in the world, and most people who have one will have another.^[1] Broadly, the ones we see at Aura fall into two plain-language groups: tension-type headaches, a dull, pressing ache often felt as a band around the head, and cervicogenic headaches, which start in the neck and refer pain up into the head, often on one side.

Migraine is different again. It is a distinct neurological condition, with its own diagnostic criteria, and can involve throbbing pain, nausea, and sensitivity to light or sound.^[2] We take migraine seriously as a medical condition. Chiropractic care may sit alongside a person's medical management of migraine, addressing neck and upper spine contributors where they exist, but it is not a cure and we will never present it as one.

Working out which pattern you have, or whether more than one is overlapping, is the starting point of the assessment. Many people who come to us carry a mix, a background tension headache most days with occasional, more severe episodes layered on top, and separating those threads is part of what the examination is for.

The upper neck connection

The top of the neck and the base of the skull share nerve pathways with the head and face. When the joints and muscles up there are under sustained load, from hours forward over a screen, a clenched jaw, or a neck that has lost its normal movement, that load can refer forward as a headache.

This is why so many of the headaches we see follow a pattern: worse by mid-afternoon, worse after a heavy screen day, better on holidays. The trigger is rarely the head itself. It is what the neck and jaw have been carrying.

The jaw is worth naming on its own. A jaw that clenches through a stressful day, or through sleep, loads the same muscles and joints that sit right beside the upper neck. Where jaw tension is part of the picture, we take that into account in the examination rather than looking at the neck in isolation.

The nervous system picture

Dr Arthur Kaganovitch (Chiropractor), who founded Aura in Toorak, sees recurring headaches as a sign the nervous system around the upper neck is stuck in guard, holding tension that keeps referring forward into the head. Measuring that, rather than guessing at it, is where we start.

We use heart rate variability and thermographic, skin-temperature scans to see how your nervous system is regulating and where it is holding tension around the neck and jaw. From there, care is a specific, considered adjustment directed at what the examination and scans found, then re-measured against your own baseline so you can see what has shifted.

This is clinical opinion built from years of practice, not a claim that every headache has a nervous system cause or that care removes it. It is one lens the assessment applies alongside the standard examination.

When a headache is urgent

Most headaches are not dangerous. Some presentations need urgent medical care, not a chiropractic appointment.

• The worst headache of your life, or one that came on suddenly and severely
• A headache with fever, stiff neck, confusion, or a rash
• A headache following a head injury or significant trauma
• A new headache pattern after age 50, or a significant change in a long-standing pattern
• Headache with weakness, numbness, slurred speech, vision loss or difficulty speaking
• Headache that wakes you from sleep, or is worse lying down or with straining

What we do

Your assessment includes a full case history and a Gonstead spinal and neurological examination, focused on the upper neck, jaw and posture, alongside heart rate variability and thermographic scans.

Care is a specific, considered adjustment aimed at the segments the examination identified, never a generic neck crack. We re-measure over time against your own baseline, so what has changed is something you can see.

If your headache pattern points toward migraine, or sits outside what a chiropractic assessment can address on its own, Dr Arthur will say so plainly and support you in getting the right medical care alongside anything we do here.