Headaches and Migraines

CorePoint offers two kinds of care for people with headaches and migraines: acupuncture and chiropractic. Here is which headache types each is commonly used for, what the evidence honestly supports, and which headache symptoms belong in an emergency room rather than in any clinic. An initial acupuncture visit costs $220 for one hour; an initial chiropractic visit costs $240.

If headaches are stealing days from your month, you have probably already tried waiting them out. Everything below is for the point where waiting stopped being a plan.

Rule out the dangerous ones first

A few headache presentations are medical emergencies. Call 911 or get to an emergency department for a thunderclap headache, meaning the worst headache of your life arriving within seconds to a minute; for headache with fever and a stiff neck; for headache alongside confusion, slurred speech, weakness, numbness, or vision loss; or for any significant headache after a blow to the head.

Separately, book with your physician before booking here if headaches are new after age 50, have changed character sharply, or are steadily worsening week over week. Dr. Navarifar asks about all of this at your first visit and will send you for medical evaluation if your pattern raises any of these flags. Care here is for headaches a doctor would call benign, even when they do not feel that way.

Know which headache you are dealing with

Tension-type headaches are the most common kind: a band of pressure on both sides of the head, often creeping up from the neck and shoulders across a stressful stretch. Migraines are a different problem altogether: typically one sided and throbbing, worsened by light, sound, or movement, sometimes preceded by visual aura, and capable of ending your plans for a day or more. Headaches that begin at the base of the skull and are provoked by neck positions often involve the joints of the upper neck.

Many people carry more than one type at once, which is a reason a long first appointment beats a quick one. Sorting the pattern out takes actual conversation.

Where chiropractic care fits

For headaches with a neck component, treatment aims at the place the pain starts rather than the place it lands. That typically means examining and adjusting the upper neck joints and working the muscles at the skull base, the upper trapezius, and the jaw area where tension accumulates. Because so much of this overlaps with plain neck pain, the two pages share more than a border.

Dr. Navarifar's exam sorts out whether your neck genuinely contributes to your headaches or is an innocent bystander, and she will tell you which one she finds.

Where acupuncture fits

Acupuncture is among the more seriously studied non-drug approaches to headache, particularly as a preventive strategy for migraine and tension-type headache delivered across a series of visits rather than as a rescue during an attack. The research findings remain mixed, and honesty requires saying so plainly. Still, many patients find their headaches easier to live with during a course of treatment, and appreciate having an option that adds no new medication to the mix.

A first acupuncture appointment at CorePoint takes an hour, includes the full traditional assessment, and costs $220; returns are $185 for 45 minutes. Nothing about booking acupuncture means abandoning your neurologist's plan. The opposite: bring that plan with you.

Keep your physician in the loop

If you see a physician or neurologist for migraine, keep them informed about care you receive here, and never stop a prescribed preventive on your own. One more consensus point worth knowing: using over the counter pain relievers on many days of the week can itself perpetuate headaches, a pattern called medication overuse headache. If that sounds familiar, it is worth raising with your doctor.

Bring data if you can

For the two weeks before your first visit, jot down each headache: when it started, where it hurt, what you ate and drank, how you slept, and where you were in your cycle if you menstruate. Migraine triggers are personal, and ten lines of notes routinely beat an hour of guessing. A log also gives you and Dr. Navarifar a baseline to judge care against honestly later.

The unglamorous levers

Mainstream headache medicine keeps pointing at the same everyday factors, and they are worth naming even though nobody profits from them: irregular sleep, skipped meals, dehydration, and big swings in caffeine intake are all commonly reported triggers. Keeping those four steady is free, boring, and sometimes surprisingly effective, and it makes any treatment you pursue easier to evaluate fairly.

Jaw clenching earns a mention too. If you wake with a tight jaw, or your dentist has commented on grinding, say so at your visit, since the jaw muscles are part of the headache picture and get examined here when the story points at them.

What a course of care looks like

Headache work is rarely a single visit. Expect a frank conversation at the start about what a reasonable trial of care looks like, what improvement would actually mean for you, and when to stop and reassess if the approach is not earning its keep. Appointments here are booked one decision at a time, at the per-visit prices published on this site.

Related care at CorePoint

The two services used for headaches and migraines here:

• Acupuncture, commonly used as a preventive series, $220 to start
• Chiropractic care for headaches driven by the neck, $240 to start

Book whichever fits your pattern, or call (949) 377-4707 and describe your headaches if you are not sure which one that is.