At OneAccord, we are internationally trained and follow a rigorous process to determine if your cervical spine or a sensitized trigeminal cervical complex influences your headache or migraine symptoms.
The critical step in diagnosing a cervicogenic (neck-related) headache or migraine is to have a skilled examination of the neck by someone trained to determine the following:
STEP I: Step one includes an intake questionnaire and a thirty-minute telemedicine visit with our headache and migraine specialist.
This will indicate if you would benefit from an in-person examination. This includes a detailed history of your headaches.
Next, we will map out the area of the headache and analyze the behavior of the symptoms. This is so vital to both treatment success, and long-term outcomes as it gives us critical pieces of the puzzle and helps us target our treatment approaches.
Step II: Step two is a 1-hour in-person visit typically covered by your insurance. During this visit, you will experience the following:
A screening of your upper cervical region and nervous system for any red flags that may deem you innapprotiate for our care, and may even necessitate a referral to a trusted specialist.
We will perform a thorough physical examination of the entire neck, with special attention paid to the upper three cervical spine joints. Our aim is to reproduce and reduce your the headache symptoms with our session. This vital step tells us if your specific presentation will respond to our treatment strategies.
During this visit, we will tell you:
Step III: Step three is our ongoing headache and migraine program. Typically patients are seen 10-12 times over a 3-6 month period, sometimes much shorter, often much longer, depending on the severity, complexity and your compliance with our recommendations.
Phase 1: Goal is to calm symptoms down by de-sensitizign the trigeminal cervical complex.
Phase 2: Goal is to create stability and/or mobitliy in the upper cervical spine.
Phase 3: Goal is to return to function, performance and long term management of your symptoms, while you get back to doing the activities you love.
Ideally, patients are seen twice a week for the first 2-3 weeks, depending on their unique presentation.
Frequency is reduced as we see positive results to one time a week, or every other week or monthly, depending on how well you respond to treatments and comply with your home program.
We assess the cervical spine every visit and update our treatment goals and home exercise program and address any behavior modifications that need to be implemented.
Every visit will include a critical aspect of lifestyle medicine coaching, as we know from experience that lifestyle factors such as sleep, stress, and nutrition play a role in the long-term success of our patients.
Between sessions you will be asked to complete home exercises, follow recommended behavior modification tasks, and engage in digital learning modules for long term success and management of your headache or migraine symptoms.
