here are a variety of different types of headache pain, and every one of them can be incredibly debilitating. Luckily, many types respond very well to hands-on manual therapy techniques.

If you are dealing with headaches and would like to know if we can help, call or text us at (512) 693-8849.

We make a ton of training videos for our staff as well as other PTs around the world. Occasionally, we post them on our blog so those who are suffering needlessly can get an idea of what’s possible with our approach to hands-on physical therapy. In this video, you’ll see one way we can help people get back to living the active lifestyle they want and deserve.

These are a couple of treatment techniques that can help alleviate certain types of headaches.

Manual Therapy Techniques To Resolve Headache Pain

If it’s after hours and you’d like to schedule a phone call with one of our doctors of physical therapy, Click Here.

Or if you’d rather not speak on the phone, you can click here to send us an email.

Video Transcription

(please excuse grammatical errors and the conversational nature of the transcription):

“When a patient has a headache when they come in to the clinic, there are two different potential variations you can apply of the Mulligan Techniques. One is called the “Headache SNAGS” and the other one is called the “Reverse Headache SNAGS.”

The first thing you need to do is come in with your pinky finger and find C2. Then, you place it gently right on the back side of the spinous process of C2. Next, you come in with the lateral border of the thenar eminence, and you’re giving it a straight PA glide.

It’s very gentle when cupping her head, with barely any movement. What you’re doing is to see if it resolves her headache at all. You hold it for at least 10 seconds before you decide if it’s making a change in the headache.

If you need to, you give it a little bit of left or right rotational pull or push to see if it that does something better. If it does not help the headache, you just hold it until the headache is gone. And if it still doesn’t help after 10 seconds or so, maybe you should try to couple some variations of right or left pressure to see if any of those work.

You tilt the person a little bit more forward with your pinky finger right at the occiput and with a lumbrical grip, you try to get around to the lateral T-processes/transprocess of the D2. You grip the backside of the neck, primarily trying to hold C2. And now the PA is through the occiput.

You tilt the person just a little bit forward because they say it’s important not to have them move into extension. And you can do this in a very gentle a very small amount of movement. So you just hold the C2, PA on the occiput, not letting her go into extension at the sub-occipital joints. And then again, asking “Is this helping the headache at all?” If so, great—and you’re just going to hold it till it gets as good as it can be. Sometimes this will totally abolish a headache.

So that is something you can try when a patient has a current headache in the clinic: a SNAG and reverse SNAG.”