Headaches are relentless, excruciating, all-pervasive … a constant thud you can’t escape. When you feel this way, it’s natural to think that your headache is the problem.
In fact, however, your headache is not so much the problem as the symptom of the problem. This may sound like splitting hairs, but it’s a vital distinction and one that separates short term relief from fixing your problem for good.
Pain of any sort is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong – that something is out of balance. Your headache exists because your body is malfunctioning on some level. If it were working properly, you would not be in pain.
Pain is a little like your oil light coming on when your car is low on oil.
Like the oil light, pain tells you something is wrong. You want the oil light NOT to come on, right? So, one solution is to cut the wire that makes it light up. Problem solved – no more oil light!
It sounds ridiculous of course, because we know that cutting the wire to your oil light won’t really fix the problem. But trying to fix your headache pain by taking a pharmaceutical drug really is a lot like this. NSAIDS like Nurofen work by cutting out the natural inflammatory response of the body. On the surface this sounds okay: inflammation causes pain, so let’s just stop the inflammation, right?
The catch is that inflammation also causes healing. Inflammation is what happens when the body, very sensibly, brings extra blood and fluid to the injured area in order to replace old, damaged cells with new cells. If this process is suppressed with anti-inflammatory drugs, the body cannot heal properly and the problem may ultimately worsen. Also, anti-inflammatories don’t just target the injured area – they inhibit the replacement of old cells with new throughout your entire body. This is a big problem for your gut, where cells are replaced every 2 to 9 days. If you’re taking anti-inflammatories regularly then your body can’t replace old gut cells, and this can lead to serious stomach problems.
A trip to the health shop?
Okay, so after some consideration you’ve decided against using pharmaceuticals to turn off your oil light. Let’s try a natural remedy instead. So, you go to the health shop and buy a ready-made natural headache formula. Not quite as fast-acting as the drugs, but at least you know you’re not damaging your body.
The problem is that this is still a symptomatic approach – you’re just hoping to cut the wire to your oil light with natural stuff instead of drugs. Of course, these natural substances have been chosen based on traditional knowledge and scientific research, and certainly have been shown to relieve headaches for many people. But you’re still just trying to get rid of the oil light without understanding what’s making the light come on in the first place. With luck you might fix the symptom, but you’re not fixing the cause – the actual problem. And if you don’t fix the problem, sooner or later your engine is going to blow.
What you really need to understand is why your body made a headache.
Your body made a headache for a reason. If you want to permanently fix your problem, you need to find that reason, and this requires investigation.
In fact, there are loads of possible reasons why your body may have made a headache, and this is partly why readymade health shop formulas are so hit and miss. Here are some of the more common reasons for headaches:
Finding out the basic cause of your headache is still just the beginning. Once we find out the basic cause, we need to know its nature – why it’s occurred. Why has a nutrient deficiency developed, why is the gut environment out of balance, why are there sinus issues etc. If we don’t know why, then we are still just playing guessing games and treating symptoms.
The key is to investigate the underlying cause of your headache or migraine
To investigate a client’s health I use a combination of Chinese pulse diagnosis, urine testing, blood testing and frequency scanning technology. These tools enable me to quickly assess the underlying nature of your health imbalance, so that I can accurately prescribe very specific remedies that will give the best chance of restoring correct function to your body.
I do not treat headaches. Yet, the vast majority of headache and migraine sufferers I treat get fast relief using only natural, complementary remedies such as powerful herbs, Neuro Needling and nutritional advice. I love getting results like this – it makes me love what I do. I truly feel blessed. And I know it’s because rather than treating headaches, I thoroughly investigate and treat the underlying cause.
Of course, headache relief through targeted natural medicines is not as fast as getting instant headache relief by popping a pill. However, remember that I’m talking about true healing, not temporarily masking pain. If you want instant relief, I can help using Neuro Needling. As a permanent solution, though, Neuro Needling only works for some people. Most people also require other corrective measures too, depending on the nature of their condition.
The few clients who do not get fast results are either:
- Nutritionally deficient, meaning it will take long for them to recover (usually 2 – 3 months) because they first need to build their reserves to the point where their body has the resources it needs to heal; OR
- I have not (yet) quite hit on the perfect formulation of their herbal mix. Sometimes correcting one body system can put stress on another one. I can easily assess if this has occurred through pulse diagnosis, from which I can find out how the herbs are working on the body. I then tweak the herbal formula appropriately. After over 20 years in practice I am still learning – and will always be. The body is an amazing phenomenon and every client I see builds my understanding of its subtleties.
If all you want is symptom relief, please go and see someone else (a GP, a health food shop practitioner, etc). But, if you want to actually fix the real problem, to truly get better, I would love to see you.
Finally, please be aware that despite many successes with past clients I can’t guarantee success with every client (no health practitioner can). Nevertheless, I am confident enough to offer a First Visit Guarantee, where we give YOU $30 (in addition to refunding you the full cost of our services to you) if you’re not satisfied with your first appointment. Full details are below.
Best wishes
Scott Hankinson
Naturopath & Neuro Needling Practitioner