The simple answer is yes. Chocolate is a very common trigger for headaches and Migraines. My mother is one person who suffers from this debilitating problem. She has to be very careful to avoid chocolate or she will be looking at 24 hours of a pounding headache, light and noise sensitivity, nausea, vomiting and has to spend the day in bed.
For some lucky people, the chocolate and headache link may be that chocolate gets rid of the headache once it starts.
The culprit is thought to be phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA is the chemical in chocolate that may cause the blood vessels to expand and contract. However, it's also a natural mood enhancer, stress reliever and memory enhancer. So once again, it may have more good than bad for some people. The chocolate and headache connection is still unclear.
Headaches are caused by many different factors. One of the most common is because of alignment problems with the neck and skull. There are small muscles at the base of our skull. These muscles are involved in keeping the head level and moving it about. The muscles are located very close to a highly important part of your brain and spinal cord. When these muscles spasm or work too hard, they affect the brain causing headaches. The muscles at the base of your skull are overactive when your neck and skull are out of position.
When discussing chocolates link to headaches it is important to differentiate between causes and triggers. The cause of the headache is the activity of the muscles at the base of your skull, the trigger is the chocolate. There are many and varied reported headache and migraine triggers. Some people react and some do not, Why? This is most often due to the state of the individual's neck. Correcting the neck and skull mis-alignments can make people no longer susceptible to the headache triggers.
An easy way to check your own neck and skull is to stand in front of a mirror. Close your eyes and march on the spot. Stop marching, and without moving your head at all, open your eyes. Look at the position of your head. Is it tilted down on one side or rotated more to the left or to the right. Get someone to look at you from the side and see how far in front of your shoulders your ears are. Your ears should be directly above your shoulders, if they are not, you have forward head carriage. Forward head carriage is the single most common cause of increased activity of the muscles at the base of your skull.
Doug Eldred is a Chiropractor in West Ryde, Sydney, NSW. He has a particular interest in helping people get their bodies back into balance, and consequently living a pain free and completely mobile, long, healthy life.
http://www.backdoctor.net.au
http://www.headachesnomore.com
http://www.rydemassage.com
Doug has a particular interest in helping people with headaches and neck pain, shoulder blade pain, low back pain, and fott, ankle, knee and spinal problems caused by foot dysfunction.
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