Conditions We Treat · Wheat Ridge, CO
Headaches & Migraines
You have been told to drink more water, sleep more, and manage your stress. Nobody checked your neck. Dr. Andrew Allen evaluates the mechanical drivers behind headache pain, because a very large share of chronic headaches start below the skull.
Over 20 years of experience · Wheat Ridge, Arvada, Lakewood, Golden & West Denver
Sound familiar?
You have built a whole life around these
A dark room. A bottle in the desk drawer, another in the car, another in your bag. Canceling on people. Powering through a workday behind sunglasses. Maybe a neurologist, maybe a prescription that helps some of the time, maybe a scan that came back clean. Headaches get treated as a chemistry problem almost every time, and for some people that is exactly right. But for a great many people, there is a mechanical driver in the neck, jaw, or upper back that has never once been examined. Finding out whether that is you takes one evaluation.
What patients describe
How headaches actually show up
The pattern matters enormously. Where it starts, where it travels, and what sets it off are the clues that tell us whether this is mechanical:
Starts at the base of the skull
Pain that begins where the neck meets the head and creeps up and over, often settling behind one eye. This is the classic cervicogenic pattern.Always the same side
Consistently one-sided headaches that do not switch sides point strongly toward a mechanical source rather than a systemic one.The vise
A band of pressure around the whole head. Classic tension-type, and very often driven by sustained muscular load in the neck and jaw.Behind or around the eye
Deep pressure or aching behind the eye socket, sometimes with light sensitivity. The suboccipital muscles refer here reliably.Triggered by neck position
It fires up after a long drive, a stretch at the computer, or sleeping funny. Position-dependent headaches are mechanical until proven otherwise.The 3 p.m. arrival
You wake up fine and it builds through the workday. That is cumulative load, not a chemical event.Migraine with aura and nausea
Visual changes, sound and light sensitivity, nausea. True migraine is a neurological condition, and neck dysfunction can still act as a trigger that lowers your threshold.Jaw involvement
Clicking, clenching, or morning jaw soreness alongside the headaches. The jaw and upper neck work as one unit.Started after a crash
Post-traumatic headaches following a collision are common and often overlooked. See our car accident injury care .
The part most clinics skip
Your head hurts. That does not mean the problem is in your head.
The nerves from your top three cervical segments converge with the trigeminal nerve, which supplies sensation to your face and scalp. Your brain genuinely cannot always tell the difference. These are the root causes Dr. Allen is actively ruling in or out:
Upper cervical joint restriction
The top two or three segments of the neck sit directly at that nerve convergence. When they stop moving properly, the result is often experienced as a headache rather than as neck pain. This is the most common finding we make in chronic headache cases. See neck pain.Suboccipital tension
Four small muscles at the base of the skull with an unusually dense nerve supply. When they are chronically loaded, they refer pain in an arc that lands right behind the eye. Almost every chronic headache patient has them.Upper trap and levator overload
These two have well-mapped referral patterns into the temple and the side of the head. If your shoulder blade is not doing its job, these two are working overtime instead.A mid back that stopped moving
Thoracic stiffness forces the neck to compensate, which raises the load on exactly the segments that generate headaches. Treating the neck without the mid back is why relief does not stick. See upper back pain.Jaw and clenching
The temporalis and masseter refer directly into the temple and behind the eye. Nighttime clenching produces a headache that is fully formed before you open your eyes.Breathing pattern
Chest breathing means the scalenes and upper traps contract with every breath. Twenty thousand contractions a day is a load no muscle recovers from, and the neck ends up perpetually primed.Unresolved whiplash
Post-concussive and post-collision headaches frequently have a cervical component that goes unaddressed once the scans come back clean.Sustained load, not bad posture
There is no perfect posture. There is only too much of one position. A laptop on a kitchen counter, a monitor set too low, ninety minutes of I-70.Hydration and altitude
Colorado is dry and thin. Dehydration and poor sleep will not create a mechanical problem, but they reliably lower the threshold at which one becomes a headache.Medication overuse rebound
Taking over-the-counter pain relievers frequently can, over time, produce headaches of its own. It is worth knowing about, and it is a good reason to find the driver instead.
The evaluation
How Dr. Allen figures out what is actually wrong
You get evaluated and treated on day one. Not a clipboard and a handshake and a see-you-next-week.
We map the headache itself
Where it starts, where it goes, how long it lasts, what sets it off, what makes it better, and what the pattern has been over time. Headache history is the single most diagnostic part of the visit.We screen for what is not mechanical
Some headaches are not our problem to solve, and a few require prompt medical attention. Dr. Allen screens for those findings first and will refer you out without hesitation if that is what the picture shows.We watch you move
Cervical rotation, upper cervical flexion, thoracic extension, shoulder blade control, and jaw motion. Pain tells you where. Movement tells you why.Segment-by-segment hands-on assessment
Dr. Allen palpates the upper cervical segments and the suboccipital, trap, and jaw musculature directly. In many patients, pressing the right spot reproduces their exact headache. That moment is usually when the whole thing clicks.We connect it to your life
Your desk, your commute, your sleep, your training, your stress load, your grinding. The trigger is usually sitting in your calendar.You get treated the same day
You leave your first visit having actually been treated, and knowing in plain English what is going on and what the plan is. If we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you and point you where to go.
Why we see so much of this here
Colorado is hard on a head
We would not live anywhere else. But the Front Range has a headache signature that people who move here from sea level notice within about a month.
Altitude and dry air
Wheat Ridge sits above 5,300 feet. Thin, dry air means faster fluid loss and more disrupted sleep than most people account for. It rarely causes headaches on its own, but it lowers the bar considerably.Barometric swings
Sixty degrees on Monday, snowing Tuesday. The Front Range does pressure changes better than almost anywhere, and pressure-sensitive headache sufferers feel every one of them.The Denver commute
Wadsworth, Kipling, I-70, then eight hours at a desk downtown. Sustained cervical load is the most reliable headache generator we see.Intense sun and glare
Three hundred days of sun plus snow glare means a lot of squinting. Squinting is sustained contraction of muscles that sit inches from your temples.Wadsworth and Kipling traffic
Post-collision headaches are common and often surface days later, long after everyone decided it was just a fender bender.Cycling on Clear Creek Trail
An hour in the drops is an hour of sustained upper cervical extension. It is one of the most headache-productive positions in sport.Ski season falls and chairlifts
Helmet or not, the neck absorbs a lot on a fall. Post-traumatic headaches from ski season are a regular February conversation here.The remote work kitchen counter
A laptop on a counter is an ergonomic disaster performed daily, and it loads the exact segments that generate headaches.Fourteeners and effort headaches
Altitude, exertion, dehydration, and a twenty-pound pack pulling on your neck for eight hours. Summit headaches have more than one cause.
The care
How we treat headaches and migraines
We are not treating the headache. We are treating whatever mechanical driver is producing it. Dr. Allen builds care around what your evaluation actually found.
Chiropractic adjustments
Targeted manipulation of the specific restricted upper cervical and thoracic segments. Specific beats general, and the mid back is almost always part of the picture.Dry needling
Thin monofilament needles into the suboccipitals, upper traps, and temporalis. For trigger-point-driven headaches this is frequently the fastest route to change, and often the one patients remember.Soft tissue therapy
Hands-on work on the suboccipitals, scalenes, levator, and jaw musculature to unload the tissue that is referring pain into your head.Cupping therapy
Decompression-based soft tissue work that may help circulation and tissue mobility across the neck and upper trap region.Therapeutic exercise
Deep neck flexor endurance, thoracic mobility, and breathing mechanics. A short, specific set aimed at the deficit we found.Trigger and load management
The practical part. Desk setup, driving, screen habits, hydration at altitude, and sleep position, connected directly to what your evaluation showed.
Straight answers
Headache & migraine FAQ
Can a chiropractor actually help migraines?
It depends on what is driving them. True migraine is a neurological condition and chiropractic care does not cure it. What care can often do is address a cervical trigger that lowers your threshold, which for some patients means fewer or less severe episodes. Cervicogenic and tension-type headaches, which are frequently mislabeled as migraines, tend to respond considerably better. The evaluation is what sorts out which one you have.How do I know if my headaches come from my neck?
Some strong clues: they start at the base of the skull, they are consistently one-sided, they are triggered by neck position or sustained postures, and pressing on specific spots reproduces your exact headache. That last one is often the deciding test, and it happens at your evaluation.My MRI was normal. Does that mean nothing is wrong?
No. It means nothing structurally alarming showed up, which is genuinely good news. Joint restriction, muscular referral, and movement dysfunction do not appear on an MRI. A clean scan rules things out, it does not rule the mechanical picture in or out.How many visits before I know if this is working?
Most headache patients have a reasonable sense within a handful of visits. Dr. Allen will tell you honestly after your evaluation what he expects, and if the plan is not producing change, the plan changes rather than repeating.Will I have to come three times a week forever?
No. There are no long-term contracts and no forced treatment plans here. The goal is to get you out of pain, teach you what caused it, and send you back to your life.When should a headache be treated as an emergency?
A sudden, severe headache unlike any you have had, or a headache with fever, stiff neck, confusion, vision loss, weakness, or trouble speaking, needs immediate medical attention rather than a chiropractic appointment. Dr. Allen screens for these patterns and will send you where you need to go.My headaches started after a car accident. Is that different?
Yes, in both the clinical picture and the paperwork. See our car accident injury page for how those cases are handled.Do you take my insurance?
Coverage questions are best answered directly. Call or text (303) 351-0744, or check the FAQ .
Wheat Ridge, CO
Stop managing it. Start fixing it.
If nobody has examined your neck, your headaches have not been fully evaluated. Get a real evaluation from a doctor with twenty years of hands, and find out what is actually going on.
Lakeside Spine and Injury Center · 6073 W 44th Ave #101, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033, United States · Proudly serving Wheat Ridge, Arvada, Lakewood, Golden, Edgewater, Applewood, and West Denver.