It's okay, it sounds redundant, but think about it. When we say: "My head hurts", we are encompassing all those structures that are in it, and in fact, they are many.

Seriously, do you haven't thought?: "What really hurts when my head is about to explode, so awful that it doesn't let me live my existence?" "Which, of all the structures in my head, are torturing me right now?"

As a good physiotherapist, I'll help you a little to discover it.

In a neurology class, when I was still a physiotherapy student, my professor taught us something that, in that moment, I found very interesting: "When your head hurts, what really hurts are the blood vessels that are in the periosteum (superficial membrane that covers the bone and that provides the necessary nutrients), because the skull, in itself, doesn't hurt". An excellent professor, I don't discuss it, but now that I can analyze what he said very well, I must admit that isn't always the case.

Yes, sometimes the cause of your headache it's in your blood vessels, of course. In fact, it can often be a sign of some complex disease, lack of vitamins, anemia, etc. But…

So it is! If your skull moves more or less with respect to your neck, or vice versa, this can alter the biomechanics of your neck; that is to say, the position of your cervical vertebrae, being able to compress or elongate the nerves that emerge from them, resulting to be the cause of your headaches, originating the so-called: Tensional and Compressive Headaches, and that is where the physiotherapist determines the cause of your problem, helping you to attack the origin of your pain.

Besides that, with a bad alignment of your cervical spine and your skull, evidently, your muscles and the fascia that covers them will be compromised.

So yes! Many times it's not your brain, or your blood vessels, or your body in general...

Because, besides that, having a bad vertebral alignment, undoubtedly there will be a bad movement, or aberrant movement in your neck.

It turns out that our column totally, is created to allow you to make all kinds of movements that get involved with your activity daily, and return to his original position. Your column must be perfectly trained to DON'T PAIN YOU, FOR NOTHING. Only that, for years, we submit it to external forces that alter their alignment, and cause discomfort.

It's very common, don't worry about that; there is no one on the face of the earth whose column is perfectly linear.

Hey! With this I don't mean that a headache can't "alert you" to a possible disease, or something much deeper than muscles, fascia, nerves and bones. Thanks to the universe, we have specialist doctors who help us rule out this kind of thing. But, that isn't always the origin of the pain.

The cause? So many. From staying for a long time in the same position and adopting bad posture, playing aggressive or explosive sports —as Rugby, for example—, malpractice by "blowing your neck" —seriously, don't do it, they hurt your neck. I promise to explain later about it, in another blog, with details—, sleep with bad position, inadequate pillow, etc. Biomechanically there are so many causes, which can be determined thanks to physiotherapeutic diagnosis during the evaluation of the patient.

Thanks to the universe —once again— you can count on a series of health professionals: Doctors, who can help rule out serious and profound diseases and; of course, PHYSIOTHERAPISTS, which can help you with the biomechanics of your spine, that you can move and turn your neck without any problem, and decrease tensions and compressions at the cranio-cervical level, that could automatically eliminate those "headaches".