Chronic headaches that won’t go away?
If you’ve tried several medications, had MRIs or CT scans, seen specialists, kept a headache journal, stayed hydrated, and the headaches still won’t leave you alone, you’re not the only one. The answer may be closer than you think: your upper neck.
15 minutes to find out if we can help your chronic headaches.
Sound like you?
A lot of the chronic headache patients we help describe the same patterns.
See if any of these feel familiar.
- Your headache often starts in your neck or at the base of your skull, then spreads up into the back of your head, behind your eyes, or across your forehead.
- Turning your head or holding certain positions makes the pain worse.
- Your neck feels stiff, and your range of motion isn’t what it used to be.
- You feel a tightening or pressing sensation, sometimes described as a band around your head.
- The muscles at the base of your skull, the upper trapezius, or along the side of your neck are tender when pressed.
- Triptans, ergotamine, indomethacin, or other prescribed medications give you partial relief at best, or nothing at all.
- Your headaches have become daily or near-daily over months or years.
- You’ve had an MRI or CT scan of your head and neck and they didn’t find anything wrong except maybe some arthritis or disc degeneration.
If several of those describe you, there’s a reason. The next section explains why.
↓ Watch: Dr. Jason Gonzales explains the connection between the upper neck and chronic headaches. ↓
The headache & neck connection
The short answer:
Your neck and your head share a pain processing hub in your brainstem. When something in your upper neck is irritated or stuck, your brain often feels it as a headache.
The longer answer:
The top two bones in your neck, called C1 and C2 (atlas and axis), sit right at the base of your skull. The nerves that exit your spine at this level relay pain signals into a structure in your brainstem called the trigeminocervical complex.
The trigeminal nerve, which carries sensation from your face and head, plugs into the same structure.
Pain signals from the neck and pain signals from the head meet at the same neurons. When that happens, your brain often can’t tell where the pain is actually coming from. A problem in your upper neck gets felt as a headache.
This is well established in mainstream neurology. A 2025 paper in Practical Neurology described it plainly: pain signals from the upper cervical spine get referred to regions of the head served by the trigeminal nerve, including behind the eyes, across the forehead, and in the back of the head.
Why this gets worse over time
When the trigeminocervical complex is irritated repeatedly over weeks or months, the surrounding neurons become hypersensitive. The threshold for pain drops.
Headaches that used to be occasional become more frequent. Pain that used to be moderate becomes severe.
Research suggests this hypersensitivity is a consequence of chronic headaches, not a pre-existing risk factor. In other words: the longer headaches go unaddressed, the more sensitive the system becomes.
This is one reason chronic headaches are easier to address earlier than later.
The bigger picture
The same brainstem region that processes shared neck-and-head pain also contain nuclei that regulate the autonomic nervous system: heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, balance, and the body’s fight or flight response.
In other words, an upper neck problem can push the whole body into a fight or flight pattern, something called sympathetic dominance. That’s the broader problem we test for, and it’s why a functional test of the nervous system test is the right first step.
What we do differently
Most chronic headache care follows a predictable script. A specialist tries to figure out which kind of headache you have, then prescribes a medication tailored to it. If the medication doesn’t help, you try another one. Then another. Then a preventive. Then, eventually, “lifestyle changes” like keeping a headache journal, drinking more water, or tracking your sleep.
What’s missing from that script is a detailed assessment of the upper neck and how it’s affecting the nervous system.
A protocol, not a guess
We work from a defined protocol for evaluating and treating chronic headache patients. Every new patient goes through the same diagnostic sequence:
- Functional nervous system testing using thermography, which measures whether your nervous system is stuck in fight or flight
- A clinical exam of the upper cervical spine, including range-of-motion testing and the cervical flexion-rotation test
- Biomechanical x-rays of the upper neck, read by a board-certified radiologist
- A review of your imaging and history to identify whether upper cervical involvement is contributing to your headaches
If the answer is yes, we explain exactly what care would look like. If the answer is no, we tell you, and we try to point you toward someone who can help.
Putting it all together
We combine all three to answer one question: is the top of your spine driving your low back pain, and can we help? If it is and we can, the testing shows us the single place to focus. If it isn’t, we’ll tell you that too, and point you in a better direction.
Ready to find out if this is what’s behind your frequent headaches?
Less interference, not more intervention
When upper cervical chiropractic care is the right fit, the approach is precise rather than repetitive. We’re not adjusting your whole spine on every visit. We’re looking to make a specific adjustment to your C1 or C2 (atlas or axis) that lets your nervous system shift back out of fight or flight. Then we monitor, and we adjust again only when your body shows us it needs us to.
This is different than general chiropractic care. It requires precision and the discipline to stop adjusting when the body is healing.
What testing looks like
The free nervous system test we offer isn’t a sales pitch. It’s real diagnostic work, and it’s how we figure out whether your headaches are coming from somewhere we can help.
Thermography
Thermography is a test that measures your autonomic nervous system: the same part that turns fight or flight on and off. Thermography testing can show us if your system is adapting or stuck. Being stuck in fight or flight is called sympathetic dominance.
The test is quick, completely non-invasive, and uses no radiation. You sit still. A specialized thermal sensor measures temperature patterns along your spine. We read the pattern, and we explain what it means.
If the pattern shows your nervous system is regulating normally, we tell you. If the pattern shows sympathetic dominance and possible upper cervical involvement, we tell you that too, and we move to the next step in the assessment
Biomechanical X-rays
If thermography suggests upper cervical involvement, the next step is biomechanical x-rays of the upper neck. These aren’t standard general-practice x-rays. They’re taken at specific angles designed to measure the position and movement of your C1 and C2 vertebrae (atlas and axis).
Every x-ray we take is read by a board-certified radiologist. We don’t make the call alone. The radiologist’s report becomes part of your file, and we walk through it with you before any care begins.
Clinical exam
Thermography and imaging tells part of the story. A hands-on clinical exam tells the rest. We assess:
- Range of motion in your upper neck
- The cervical flexion-rotation test, which is the most diagnostically accurate single test for upper cervical involvement in headache
- Strength and endurance of the deep neck flexor muscles
- Palpable tenderness or restriction at the C1-C2 level
These are the same exam findings that research published in mainstream neurology journals identifies as the markers for upper cervical headache involvement. When several of them show up together, it’s a strong indication that the upper neck is part of the problem.
Will this work for you?
We don’t take every patient who walks in. The point of the free nervous system test is to find out, honestly, whether your headaches are something we can help with. Some chronic headache patients are excellent candidates for upper cervical care. Others aren’t, and we’d rather tell you that upfront than waste your time.
It’s most likely to help if…
- Your headaches are rooted in a neck problem, typically associated with reduced neck range of motion
- Your headaches haven’t fully responded to migraine medications, preventives, or short-term physical therapy
- You have chronic or frequent headaches and neck pain or stiffness
- Your clinical exam shows objective markers of upper cervical involvement: a positive cervical flexion-rotation test, deep neck flexor weakness, or palpable upper cervical joint restriction
We need to pause if…
- Your headaches are caused by a primary intracranial issue that’s been identified via MRI or CT scan. These are rare, but they require neurology or neurosurgery consult and upper cervical chiropractic care may have to wait. Part of our screening process is making sure we’re not missing something that requires a different kind of care.
- Your cervical spine appears to be unstable or you have unusual neurological symptoms. These also require specialist evaluation first.
No magic bullets
Even when upper cervical chiropractic care is the right fit, we can’t promise a cure. The goal is significant, lasting reduction in how often your headaches happen, how severe they are, and how much they disrupt your life.
We’re often able to reduce the problem by 75% or more, but even if your headaches were only cut in half, would you still consider that a win?
If a clinic promises to cure your chronic headaches, be skeptical. Nobody can promise that. We won’t either.
Find out if we can help your headaches.
Fifteen minutes, no cost, no pressure. Just answers.