Listen or Read Dr. Rubinstein’s Monthly Podcast Interview!
Topic: Headaches
Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. Gregg Rubinstein’s interview on the razorcast™ monthly podcast. You can either click the video to listen to the podcast or simply read the easy to follow transcript below. Enjoy!
Podcast Interview:
RC: Hello everyone, this is Liz Harvey coming to you from our razorcast™ studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the United States.
In today’s episode we are speaking with chiropractor, Dr. Gregg Rubinstein. Dr. Rubinstein is the founder of 57th Street Chiropractic located in the heart of midtown Manhattan where he has been practicing since 1993. He specializes in pediatric & family care and Dr. Rubinstein is a long standing member of the International Chiropractic Pediatrics Association. He also serves as a board member of Friends of Fresh and Green Academy, a non-profit organization that does extensive charity work in education in Ethiopia.
Dr. Rubinstein is widely considered to be one of the top chiropractors in the U.S. and is also a contributing member of our national network of razorcast™ professionals.
Today we are going to talk about a very important topic: Headaches
RC: Hi Dr. Rubinstein how are you today?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: I’m doing great Liz thanks for having me on today.
RC: Well thanks for being here.
Question 1: Can you describe the different types of headaches?
RC: This topic is not so much fun – headaches. I know, I suffer from occasional headaches and I know how debilitating they can be for me and some people. Can you describe the different types of headaches?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: I certainly can. How much time do we have? The reason I’m mentioning that is when you look at the ICD-9 codes (which are the ways that doctors describe the patient types of injuries), there’s over 150 types of headaches that have been classified and described. The most common ones, the things that I see the most of are the stress – tension headaches. We also see migraine headaches, cluster headaches and then there could be headaches associated with a lot of different other things.
You can go up high in altitude and that can cause headaches. People can dehydrate or they can go out and have maybe a few too many drinks and have that hangover headache. So there’s all these different types. There’s sinus headaches, headaches from lack of food – if some people don’t eat, they get headaches. Some people when they withdraw from caffeine, they get headaches. There’s all these different types of headaches.
And the truth is headaches are just a warning sign. Pain is a warning signal that something is not right. So when your body sends you messages like that, you have to listen. But there are many different types and many of the headaches really do respond well to chiropractic care and we certainly see an awful lot of headache sufferers coming in and out of our office and getting pretty good results.
Question 2: How is bad posture a cause for headaches?
RC: Great and how is bad posture a cause for headaches. Can you explain that?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: That is a big contributory factor because you know in some of previous conversations we always talk about how structure and alignment can dictate function. One of the things that we’re seeing nowadays is people spending an awful lot of time on computers and also spending a lot of time texting. And if you ever look at a kid who is looking at his phone, their head is kind of down and forward and we call that forward head posture. And adults do the exact same thing. I even catch myself doing the same thing.
We’re starting to develop this forward head posture where something that is about twelve to fifteen pounds, which is your head, is balanced on a couple of bones that are kind of analogues to like basically a bowling ball being balanced on a pencil. As your head goes forward, all that weight goes forward and puts an awful lot of strain on the neck which can cause some of the vertebrae especially at the top of the neck to get misaligned and that irritation and pressure can start to cause headaches. It can affect the blood flow through the brain in the area as well and it’s a very common cause of tension headaches or what they call cervicogenic or spine related headaches.
Question 3: How does chiropractic care help with headache relief?
RC: And how does chiropractic care help with headache relief?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well, what’s great about chiropractic care is it is really more directed at the cause of the headache and not necessarily trying to treat the symptom. Because if you take an aspirin, there’s a very good chance that your headache may go away but in reality, you’re not having a headache because you have an aspirin deficiency. There is something mechanical causing it. When the bones of the upper neck get out of alignment, they will irritate some of the nerves and that can cause headaches.
So we do chiropractic adjustments to get pressure off the nerves and usually that’s enough to alleviate a great deal of the headaches. And there’s another type of headache like the migraine headaches that people get. Migraine headaches tend to be what a lot of people will call vascular headaches. You’ll feel in throbbing or pounding with every beat of your heart.
When we make chiropractic adjustments, we can actually relax the central nervous system and cause what’s called vasoconstriction or vasodilation which is controlled by our autonomic nerve system. So by making the proper adjustments and alleviating irritation to the nerve system, sometimes you can get the blood vessels to relax. That can actually be one of the major leading causes of those vascular type headaches – when the nerve system is either contracting or expanding those blood vessels inappropriately at that given time. So it really helps your body regulate itself and regulate the blood pressure and the blood flow which is a big cause of the common migraine headache.
So it’s all focused on alleviating pressure and irritation to the nerve so the body functions properly. That is when we’re going to get the best relief from a headache situation and we do really well with migraines, tension headaches, stress headaches and even sinus headache.
Question 4: When faced with a headache, what else can people do at home to seek relief naturally?
RC: And when faced with a headache at home, what can people do to naturally seek relief?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Well with the tension type of headaches or the vascular headaches, usually stress is a major cause. There is usually some type of precipitating event that will drive that person into the headache. So you know to receive natural relief meditation is great; yoga is great; massage. But really, it’s more about preventing them and you want to figure out – certain people have food triggers, right? Caffeine or chocolate or red wine can cause headaches in certain people. Learning what your food trigger is and then being able to avoid it, is something that’s really going to be a much better way to go.
Once you have the headache, there’s herbs. There are ways that you can actually pinch the webbing between your thumb and index finger on your left hand and that can relieve headaches. You can apply pressure to the base of your skull. Sinus headaches – when they occur, you can apply pressure to the front of the sinuses which will also help the sinuses drain and alleviate some of that pressure. So there’s many different things that you can do but you need to find what works for you and your specific type of headache so it can vary from person to person really.
Question 5: Do you have recommendations on ways to avoid getting headaches?
RC: Okay and you touched on this a little bit but my last question was going to be, do you have recommendations on ways to avoid getting headaches? And I know it sounds a little obvious with some of those triggers but what other advice do you have on ways to avoid headaches?
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: Those are great things. We did touch upon a few of them. Avoiding your food triggers. For some people MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) is a big problem. People who smoke cigarettes have vascular challenges so quitting smoking is a great way to avoid getting headaches. Proper hydration, we all know when we get dehydrated, we can get headaches so making sure you have proper hydration. Maintaining the health of your spine, seeing a chiropractor is a great way. Stress management techniques, we talked about yoga and meditation, massage – great things. And also exercise and another obvious one is not skipping meals.
You know, people will skip meals and all of a sudden, they’ll develop a headache and just by having a snack, you can prevent headaches as well and we mentioned exercise before. So there’s myriads of different things we do. There’s so many different ways that we can just enhance our overall health by just listening to our body and taking simple appropriate action steps.
And that’s what I really love to see. As a chiropractor, we’re not just in here making the adjustments and doing that. We advise people on their lifestyle and teach them how to modify their lifestyle because it’s really about prevention. It’s so much easier to prevent problems from coming on than to get rid of them once they’re already there.
RC: Okay great and thank you so much Dr. Rubinstein! I want to thank you for your time and help today.
Dr. Gregg Rubinstein: It’s an absolute honor to be here and share this information with other people. Even if we can help one person by educating them or getting them to try one thing, if it helps one person, we’ve done a great job today. So it’s really an honor to be here.
RC: Thanks so much. We agree so thank you. And for our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with Dr. Gregg Rubinstein, you can either go online at www.chiropractormidtown.com or call (917) 534-6484 to schedule an appointment.
On behalf of our entire team at razorcast™, we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to bringing you more top quality content from our country’s leading experts.
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