13 min
Episode 1625 - Dry needling for the suboccipital headache #PTonICE Daily Show
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- Fitness
Dr. Ellison Melrose // #TechniqueThursday // www.ptonice.com
In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Dry Needling lead faculty member Ellison Melrose discusses how to dry needle the occiput to address headache complaints. Elli orients listeners to the anatomy of the occiput as well as muscles to target when needling. She also discusses what stim parameters to use when treating headaches.
Take a listen to the podcast episode or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog
If you're looking to learn more about our live dry needling courses, check out our dry needling certification which consists of Upper Body Dry Needling, Lower Body Dry Needling, and Advanced Dry Needling.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
INTRODUCTION
Hey everyone, this is Alan. Chief Operating Officer here at ICE. Before we get started with today’s episode, I want to talk to you about VersaLifts. Today’s episode is brought to you by VersaLifts. Best known for their heel lift shoe inserts, VersaLifts has been a leading innovator in bringing simple but highly effective rehab tools to the market. If you have clients with stiff ankles, Achilles tendinopathy, or basic skeletal structure limitations keeping them from squatting with proper form and good depth, a little heel lift can make a huge difference. VersaLifts heel lifts are available in three different sizes and all of them add an additional half inch of h drop to any training shoe, helping athletes squat deeper with better form. Visit www.vlifts.com/icephysio or click the link in today’s show notes to get your VersaLifts today.
ELLISON MELROSE
All right, good morning, Instagram and YouTube. Welcome to the PT on ICE Daily Show. My name is Dr. Ellison Melrose. I am lead faculty with the dry needling division. We're gonna dive right into things today. I am here to bring you dry needling for the suboccipital headache. And why I say that in quotations is because oftentimes when people are complaining of headaches at the base of the occiput, If we actually take time to palpate those tissues, it's not the true suboccipitals, okay? So we are thinking about the occipital insertion of things like upper trap and semispinalis. Those are our two main culprits when we have patients that complain of the headaches that start at the base of their occiput. So before we dive in, first of all, I have already cleaned the tissue of my patient here. but let's orient ourself to the anatomy of this occipital area.
OCCIPITAL ANATOMY
So in order to do so, we are gonna start by palpating for the external occipital protuberance, which is the protuberance, which is the nice bump on the back of our head here. So that's going to give us that orientation of where that superior nuchal line is, okay? Superior nuchal line is going to be the superior border of those occipital insertion of upper trap and semispinalis. We can follow that superior nuchal line down towards the mastoid process here. That's going to give us our, again, superior border of where those needles live. If we follow the mastoid process medially, it dives deep, but the inferior nuchal line is going to be the inferior most border of where we're needling today. What I want to do is I wanna take some time to find where the true suboccipitals live as to avoid needling in this area. So in order for us to do that, we're going to, there's a couple ways to find this region. First, we can palpate that EOP, external occipital protuberance, and drop down. The first spinous process we come in contact with is going to actually be spinous process of C2, as C1 does not have a spinous process. So that is going to be the inferior aspect of where the true suboccipitals live. Let's come back towards the mastoid process. From there, if we drop just distal, feeling the lateral like pillars of the neck, that is going to be the transverse, the first thing we palpate there is a transverse process of C1. So the true suboccipitals live between the spin
Dr. Ellison Melrose // #TechniqueThursday // www.ptonice.com
In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Dry Needling lead faculty member Ellison Melrose discusses how to dry needle the occiput to address headache complaints. Elli orients listeners to the anatomy of the occiput as well as muscles to target when needling. She also discusses what stim parameters to use when treating headaches.
Take a listen to the podcast episode or check out the full show notes on our blog at www.ptonice.com/blog
If you're looking to learn more about our live dry needling courses, check out our dry needling certification which consists of Upper Body Dry Needling, Lower Body Dry Needling, and Advanced Dry Needling.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
INTRODUCTION
Hey everyone, this is Alan. Chief Operating Officer here at ICE. Before we get started with today’s episode, I want to talk to you about VersaLifts. Today’s episode is brought to you by VersaLifts. Best known for their heel lift shoe inserts, VersaLifts has been a leading innovator in bringing simple but highly effective rehab tools to the market. If you have clients with stiff ankles, Achilles tendinopathy, or basic skeletal structure limitations keeping them from squatting with proper form and good depth, a little heel lift can make a huge difference. VersaLifts heel lifts are available in three different sizes and all of them add an additional half inch of h drop to any training shoe, helping athletes squat deeper with better form. Visit www.vlifts.com/icephysio or click the link in today’s show notes to get your VersaLifts today.
ELLISON MELROSE
All right, good morning, Instagram and YouTube. Welcome to the PT on ICE Daily Show. My name is Dr. Ellison Melrose. I am lead faculty with the dry needling division. We're gonna dive right into things today. I am here to bring you dry needling for the suboccipital headache. And why I say that in quotations is because oftentimes when people are complaining of headaches at the base of the occiput, If we actually take time to palpate those tissues, it's not the true suboccipitals, okay? So we are thinking about the occipital insertion of things like upper trap and semispinalis. Those are our two main culprits when we have patients that complain of the headaches that start at the base of their occiput. So before we dive in, first of all, I have already cleaned the tissue of my patient here. but let's orient ourself to the anatomy of this occipital area.
OCCIPITAL ANATOMY
So in order to do so, we are gonna start by palpating for the external occipital protuberance, which is the protuberance, which is the nice bump on the back of our head here. So that's going to give us that orientation of where that superior nuchal line is, okay? Superior nuchal line is going to be the superior border of those occipital insertion of upper trap and semispinalis. We can follow that superior nuchal line down towards the mastoid process here. That's going to give us our, again, superior border of where those needles live. If we follow the mastoid process medially, it dives deep, but the inferior nuchal line is going to be the inferior most border of where we're needling today. What I want to do is I wanna take some time to find where the true suboccipitals live as to avoid needling in this area. So in order for us to do that, we're going to, there's a couple ways to find this region. First, we can palpate that EOP, external occipital protuberance, and drop down. The first spinous process we come in contact with is going to actually be spinous process of C2, as C1 does not have a spinous process. So that is going to be the inferior aspect of where the true suboccipitals live. Let's come back towards the mastoid process. From there, if we drop just distal, feeling the lateral like pillars of the neck, that is going to be the transverse, the first thing we palpate there is a transverse process of C1. So the true suboccipitals live between the spin
13 min