By three o’clock most afternoons, it starts. A tight ache at the base of your skull that creeps up behind your ear and settles somewhere over your eye. You roll your shoulders, tilt your head side to side, maybe take something for it, and get through the rest of the day.
Then it happens again tomorrow.
If that is your week, most weeks, there is a good chance your headache is not really a head problem. It is a neck and shoulder problem that shows up in your head. That distinction is the whole reason some people get lasting relief, and others cycle through medication for years.
Why So Many Headaches Start Below the Jawline
The top three segments of your cervical spine sit in an unusual neighborhood. The nerves serving those joints converge with the nerve that carries sensation from your face and much of your scalp. Your brain receives the signals but is not great at telling them apart.
The practical result: an irritated joint or a knotted muscle at the base of your neck can produce pain you feel in your temple, forehead, or behind your eye. Nothing is wrong in your head. The message is just arriving from somewhere lower.
The usual suspects are a short list of muscles we check on nearly every headache patient:
- Suboccipitals — the small muscles right where your skull meets your neck. Tightness here refers to pain in a band around the side of the head.
- Upper trapezius — the shoulder-to-neck slope. Trigger points here classically refer up behind the ear and into the temple.
- Levator scapulae — runs from the shoulder blade to the neck. Usually the one that makes turning your head to check a blind spot unpleasant.
- Sternocleidomastoid — the rope on the front of your neck. Refers into the forehead and around the eye, and gets overlooked constantly.
If you want the deeper explanation of why muscle knots refer pain to places they are not, we covered it here: Muscle Knots, Trigger Points, and Fascia: What Is Actually Going On in Your Body?
The Wheat Ridge Version of This Problem
Our patients come from Wheat Ridge, Lakeside, Arvada, Edgewater, and across the Denver metro, and the headache stories rhyme more than you would expect.
There is the person commuting into downtown Denver who spends forty minutes each way with their head slightly forward and hands at ten and two. The remote worker in Arvada running two monitors at mismatched heights. The nurse or trades worker whose job keeps one arm overhead or one shoulder loaded all shift. The parent hauling a kid on one hip and a bag on the same shoulder for years.
None of these are dramatic injuries. They are small, repeated postural loads that gradually shorten some muscles, weaken others, and leave the joints of the neck moving less than they should. Headaches are often the first complaint that finally gets someone to do something about it.
What Happens at Your First Visit
Dr. Andrew Allen, DC, starts with history, and he asks more questions than most people expect. Where does the pain begin, not just where does it end up? How long from first twinge to full headache? Which side? Does it change with neck position? What was the last thing that clearly triggered one?
Then the physical exam:
- Cervical range of motion, segment by segment — not just “can you turn your head” but which specific levels have stopped gliding properly.
- Palpation of the muscles listed above, checking whether pressure reproduces your familiar headache. This is the single most informative test we do.
- Postural and shoulder assessment — head position, shoulder blade control, thoracic spine mobility, because the neck rarely fails alone.
- Neurological screening to rule out anything that needs a different kind of doctor.
You leave that visit knowing what we found and whether we think we can help. If we do not think chiropractic care is the right answer for your headaches, we say that instead of selling you a plan. If you are curious about the general flow of a first appointment, here is what to expect at your first adjustment.
How We Actually Treat It
Care for headaches and migraines at our clinic usually combines a few things, because muscle and joint problems feed each other and treating one alone tends to disappoint.
Soft tissue work on the referring muscles
This is where Dr. Allen spends most of his hands-on time. Targeted soft tissue therapy to the suboccipitals, upper traps, levator, and SCM releases the tissue that is actively generating referred pain. Patients often feel a change during the first session — not a cure, but a noticeable loosening.
Restoring motion in the upper neck and mid-back
Gentle chiropractic adjustments address the segments that have stopped moving well. When the upper cervical joints move properly again, the muscles around them stop working overtime to compensate. We usually treat the thoracic spine too, since a stiff mid-back forces the neck to make up the difference.
Dry needling for stubborn trigger points
Some trigger points do not release with hands alone. Dry needling reaches deeper bands directly, and for the right patient it can shorten the timeline considerably. It is optional — plenty of people get relief without it.
The part you do between visits
Two or three specific movements, a workstation adjustment, and a change to how you sleep. Small, unglamorous, and the difference between relief that lasts and relief that fades by Thursday.
How Long Does This Take?
Honest answer: it depends on how long it has been going on. Someone whose headaches started six weeks ago after a work change often turns a corner within a handful of visits. Someone who has had daily tension headaches for eight years is looking at a longer arc, with progress measured in fewer headache days per month before it is measured in zero.
What we watch for early is frequency and intensity dropping — four headaches a week becoming two, or a headache that used to end your evening becoming one you barely notice. Those shifts usually show up before the headaches stop entirely, and they tell us the plan is working. If nothing has changed after a few weeks, we reassess rather than repeat.
When to See Someone Else First
Please seek prompt medical care for a sudden “worst headache of my life,” a headache with fever and stiff neck, a headache following a head injury, or any headache with new weakness, numbness, slurred speech, confusion, or vision changes. Those need evaluation from a physician or emergency department, and we will refer you without hesitation.
The same is true for true migraine with aura, which is usually best co-managed with your primary care provider or a neurologist. We are happy to work alongside them on the neck and shoulder component.
Come See Us in Wheat Ridge
We are at 6073 W 44th Ave #101, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033, a short drive from Lakeside, Arvada, Edgewater, and most of the west Denver metro. If persistent neck pain travels with your headaches, that gets addressed as part of the same plan — more on that in Chronic Neck Pain in Wheat Ridge: When to Stop Pushing Through It.
You have probably been managing these headaches longer than you should have to. Call (303) 351-0744 or book a free 30-minute evaluation, and let’s find out where yours are actually coming from.
