If you have struggled with headaches and migraines, this conversation is for you. I'll talk with Dr. Jono Taves about his work as a physical therapist and the discoveries that brought him to work specifically with headache and migraine relief.
Jono Taves first fostered a love for health and wellness as a collegiate soccer player and an exercise science major at Northwestern College. After receiving his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from the Mayo Clinic, he developed a passion for helping people find the source of their aches and pains, allowing a more natural healing process. Since then Dr. Taves has dedicated his career to the mission of educating and empowering people with headaches and migraines to break free from a life of fear and dependence so that they can thrive in everything they do. He now is the owner of Novera: Headache Center, one of the country’s only specialty physical therapy centers devoted to helping headache and migraine patients, and the host of The Headache Doctor Podcast.
If you have struggled with headaches and migraines, this conversation is for you. I'll talk with Dr. Jono Taves about his work as a physical therapist and the discoveries that brought him to work specifically with headache and migraine relief.
Jono Taves first fostered a love for health and wellness as a collegiate soccer player and an exercise science major at Northwestern College. After receiving his Doctorate of Physical Therapy from the Mayo Clinic, he developed a passion for helping people find the source of their aches and pains, allowing a more natural healing process. Since then Dr. Taves has dedicated his career to the mission of educating and empowering people with headaches and migraines to break free from a life of fear and dependence so that they can thrive in everything they do. He now is the owner of Novera: Headache Center, one of the country’s only specialty physical therapy centers devoted to helping headache and migraine patients, and the host of The Headache Doctor Podcast.
anyone with headaches and migraines, I want them to, again, feel empowered that you can. make little changes throughout your day implements like we talked about, maybe a, an exercise program, specific stretches, to reduce the amount of stress on your neck and shoulders. There's little things that, that people can do that can really have a big impact.
Magic Barclay:
back to A Magical Life. I'm your host, Magic Barclay, and today Dr. Jono Taves joins us. Dr. Jono Taves is the owner of Novera Headache Center and the host of the Headache Doctor podcast. Podcast. He specializes in relieving headaches and migraines for patients who just don't get enough of what they need from traditional treatments as in pain relief. He believes everyone deserves a life free from intrusive pain and unwanted medications so that they can excel in everything they do. Certainly a man after my own heart. Welcome Dr. Jono.
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah. Thanks for having me magic.
Magic Barclay:
So good to have you here. And I think, you know, headaches, they're kind of one of those things that. You know, people look for the quick fix rather than looking at the root cause, you know, is it dehydration? Is it stress? Is it a number of things? And you know, pain is just something so many people mask. So I'm really looking forward to diving deep with this today. Now we ask. Three questions of all of our guests to start with, and I love some of the answers you sent me. And so the first one is what can your expertise do to accelerate health, not just physical, but also emotional and spiritual health?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah. Well, my training and my background is as a physical therapist. So when we think of physical therapists, I'll put it in the context of we are experts in knowing how the body should move and restoring function to the body. Which is a major component of all of our health and wellness, right? So how we move, is either going to be very helpful to our different, to the different systems in our body. And specifically, um, in managing things like headaches and migraines, uh, or lack of movements, or improper movement or repetitive movements, can kind of be harmful. And so managing. The way people move, restoring the way people move is, uh, is primarily kind of like at its core, a 10, 000 foot view. That's what I'm doing. I want to, take certain parts of the body, like when people come in clinically. And they have headaches or migraines. They laid on the table. I'm working on them physically. So hands on treatment to restore function to their neck. Oftentimes that's the primary area that we focus on, but that's, broader than that is just, uh, education and empowerment on getting people to move, in a way that's actually healthy and helpful for their body. So we're, We're managing the level of stress that's placed on our body. So physical stress, uh, we want to actually take stress and have it be beneficial to us. And so educating people on that is a lot of what I do on my podcast. and I think what we'll probably get into today.
Magic Barclay:
Terrific. And so, you know, we talk about wealth here as well, and we know that we have no wealth without our health. What are your top three tips to creating wealth, be it financial, personal, or emotional wealth?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah, it's, it's a great question. I think when I think of wealth, as far as someone being free with their time and with the resources, right? So the problem when people have headaches or migraines is they're dealing with some sort of this, this chronic pain pattern oftentimes, and it comes at the worst times. And so what we want to do, what we're all pursuing. Is freedom to control our own scenario, control our own time control. how we want to spend our day. Right. So if a migraine comes in, it totally changes your plans and you're on the couch and, uh, you just have to. Put yourself in a dark room. yeah, that directly ties not only to wealth in the sense of like the monetary value of you not being able to go to work or, uh, invest in relationships, whatever that might look like. and so within our process, we want people to be freed up, in their time and their resources in that way. So empowerment and education, uh, are a big part of that in our mission. We talk about, actually. Allowing people to live in a way where they're not fearful of their next headache or migraine or dependent on medication. Um, medication in this sense would be seen as like symptom management, which doesn't mean necessarily that like medication doesn't have a role, but we want you to feel like you have a sense of control so that you can feel like, you know, your health and your wealth are now, you can act upon those.
Magic Barclay:
Exactly. And our final standard question is around weight and that is, have you over battled your weight? If so, how did you make those changes? And if not, what can you offer the listeners around their weight loss journey? And I guess I will lead you in with that. We know that stress is a major component in weight. It can be a major component in headaches too. So how do people, you know, stop stressing about their weight causing more headaches?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah, it's a really good question. I, I personally, I have not dealt with weight in the sense of, uh, I mean, I've always sort of hovered around the same way, plus or minus 10 pounds. And so, um, I, I feel very, uh, blessed to, uh, not have that as a, as a part of my life, as far as like, um, struggling to manage my weight. And so, But in what I do in helping people move better, um, weight is a major component of that and, and managing weight, especially when it comes to headaches and migraines, there's, there's a connection, between, let's say things like sedentary lifestyle, diet, stress levels that will, put someone in a category or, or I guess put them, in this situation, kind of a precarious situation. where they're more likely to experience headaches and migraines. And so professionally, as I work with patients, a lot of, a lot of times we're just recommending some very, basic frameworks. when someone has headaches or migraines and they're trying to self manage, we're not necessarily, you know, Approaching it from, let's try to lose weight, uh, but the same principles can apply to someone who is trying to manage their weight at the same time as managing their headaches or migraines. And so what I would say is that we do want to incorporate movement. We're not, and we also want to get the benefit of intentional exercise. And so movement might be something as simple as taking frequent walks, and then exercise, as You are capable and your, and your body and your headaches or migraines allow you to meaning your body probably has a threshold that might be relatively low, but we want to do some form of exercise, whether that's weightlifting or cardio, something to get your heart rate up that you can manage. And then we can take baby steps to build on that. Um, so those are sort of the basic frameworks and there's nuances of that. And we help people through that process. but we definitely want to get the benefits of exercise, in our world is going to be looking at pain threshold, and releasing, you know, good hormones, endorphins. That our bodies will utilize to, to regulate pain, but we also want to, we'll get the side benefits of weight loss and weight management, just because our body's moving and we're probably going to be, uh, burning more calories. And then we also want to be thinking, about diet and what we're consuming and things like that. again, more from the side of what might a food trigger be and how do we avoid that? But that goes hand in hand as. If a food is increasing sort of systemic inflammation through our body, and it's not necessarily helpful to our gut, also going to have an impact on weight. And so these things kind of go hand in hand.
Magic Barclay:
They certainly do. Now that's our standard questions. I really want to dive deep into what you see as. The leading causes of headaches. I know from a functional medicine perspective, you know, I see a lot of hormone imbalances, you know, for example, low progesterone or, you know, too high estrogen or testosterone, but there's so many other things, you know, dehydration, chronic cell dehydration, cell danger response. What do you think the main causes of headaches are?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah, I'll give you a snapshot of my story cause it'll help explain, where I'm coming from. So I, as a physical therapist, I started to, um, work with manual therapists. These are people that work with their hands. These are physical therapists that work with their hands. Oftentimes they're working on the spine, on the neck, on the job. Uh, and, uh, I, I found a few of them that were able to mentor me that were seeing patients with headaches. And so I started to build my own caseload of, patients with headaches. and as I started doing that, I realized there was this, this overlooked sort of neck issue that had to do with movement. So mobility in the upper neck is really important. We think of our head and it weighs about the weight of a bowling ball, so 10 to 12 pounds. And our neck is very mobile. Um, But it's tasked with holding this 10 to 12 pound weight up all day. And so you can think of, the amount of work that it has to do. Now you don't necessarily feel that weight, because our bodies have, you know, we have a lot of structure and the, the, the musculature is well equipped to handle the weight of the head. But if we put in different postures or maybe we've had some, uh, head or neck trauma in the past, it's very common to have this sort of injury. in the upper part of the neck. And what I'm talking about is actually, so the first two joints in the neck, so the head sitting on the first bone and the first and second bones interacting, uh, should allow us to both nod and rotate. So the specifically the first and second bones interact with each other to allow us to rotate about 45 degrees. Most people we see that come to see us with headaches and migraines have lost that movement. Now, what, what, Oftentimes, people with headaches and migraines will experience is this sort of sensitivity, pain or pressure, uh, at the base of the skull, top part of the neck. If you're someone that deals with neck tension, headaches, or you have migraine symptoms, um, that might be a sensitive area for you. You might know where I'm talking about. Now that's anatomically, that is the area that I'm, I'm addressing. Okay. So loss of movement in that spot of the neck. Now, oftentimes patients will have pain there that wraps up and around the head. That can be the typical migraine presentation. There's all sorts of different types of headaches. but any sort of header facial pain can be traced back to an issue in the upper part of the neck. That's just what we've seen in our practice. We've seen Virtually all types of headaches and, and, and migraine presentations. Uh, and as long as we can find these underlying problems in the neck and treat them, it seems to have a profound impact in the person's situation. now I'll, I'll continue here into. Sort of pain and how the brain experiences this pain and why it gets the location wrong because sometimes it's hard for people to connect the neck to their Symptoms with migraine because it's it's a visual disturbance. It's sensitivities to lights and sounds it's this throbbing pounding sensation and to think that that all comes from the neck might be a little odd, but What we understand about the anatomy is the upper part of the neck. So C0 to C3. So think of the base of your skull all the way down to the third vertebrae. So that part of the neck that's kind of sore and sensitive, potentially is. Sending a pain signal. So there's tension there, there's irritation. The joints aren't happy, the muscles aren't happy, so it sends that pain signal. And, um, the, the key thing is that before it hits the brain and the brain realizes that there's a pain, it meets up in the brainstem with other sensory nerves. one of the primary nerves is the trigeminal nerve. The trigeminal nerve has these three branches and it picks up sensory input from the phase. Okay, so these, these nerves meet up and there's plenty of other nerves that meet up in what's called this nucleus, this trigeminal cervical nucleus. And then it sends a comment signal to the brain itself. And we actually realize what's happening when it hits the brain. And so the reason that it gets the location wrong is because the brain is getting this signal, but it doesn't necessarily know where exactly it came from. And especially as the intensity of the pain ramps up. It could get the pain wrong or just think like everything, is in like an alarm mode. that's also the reason we can get sort of hypersensitivities to other sensory inputs. So we know that when someone's experiencing a migraine, they have hypersensitivities to all sorts of sensory inputs. and that's where, you know, the light and sound sensitivity, maybe the, the nausea, and the visual disturbance or the aura can come from. And, uh, what we're finding clinically is that the upper part of the neck and treating that can be effective in calming down that whole system. So that pain signal being generated and sent up to the brain, if we can stop that or minimize that, that can really have a great benefit to the patient in their situation. I
Magic Barclay:
absolutely love that answer, and I was actually busy writing notes. Now, for someone that may have structural damage, like a stenosis in a cervical spine, something like that, how can they increase the level of their spinal health when there's that physical limitation?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah, that's a good question. So cool thing about our bodies is that we are always adapting to stress. Okay. So stress can either be helpful. Um, so for example, when you lift weights, all right, so you're lifting weights in a way that's adding stress to your joints, to your ligaments. To your muscles, to your tendons, the response from all of those is actually to increase their tolerance and their resilience. That's why people get stronger. That's where your bones get stronger in relation to stress. now there can be stress that's, that's negative as well. And that's where things like stenosis comes from. So stenosis is essentially over a period of time, there's been added stress to a certain segment within the spine. Now, We can look at something like stenosis and you know, it's situational, meaning like if you have a stenosis that's progressed to the point of like, yeah, you're getting these neurological symptoms down your arm or weakness or something like that, it may be appropriate to actually surgically go in and clear that up. But for the most part. And even in that situation, what I would want to do is find out why that specific segment is under an increased amount of stress. And oftentimes, so if we think about this, this problem in the neck. Now, I talked about how pain can be traveling up into the head, but the other thing that happens is, okay, let's take rotation for example. Every time you turn your head, you should have 80 to 90 degrees of rotation. Okay, so you're kind of looking over your shoulder and then you come back. Well, if the C1 and C2 segment is not doing its job, That's actually where half of our rotation should come from. So turn your head again and think of that specific joint not doing its job. Now, most people we see can still turn their head relatively full range of motion. And what's happening is they're compensating. Okay. So where is that compensation happening? Typically it's in the mid portion of the neck. And so the mid portion of the neck has to do more work. And oftentimes we see this, this stenosis or these degenerative changes. In the like 5, 5, 6 region, because that's where the added stress. actually is being translated because of the restrictions in the upper part of the neck. And so what we'd want to do in that situation is to restore function and, uh, as much as possible. And, and the body can do that. We can always improve upon a situation because that's just how our body works. And so, yeah, even with someone that has some sort of a structural issue like that, uh, we would still want them to, to go through a process of restoring function. in order to reduce stress, of that negative type.
Magic Barclay:
Now we've covered a fair bit in a short amount of time. What do you think the listeners need to hear about headaches and migraines?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah, I, on my podcast and, uh, really the mission of, Novera Headache Center, when people come in person or work with people virtually is to educate and empower. So that empower word, uh, means a lot to us because what we feel like is happening in our healthcare system, and really worldwide, I think I can speak to is, the, the person that is dealing with headaches and migraines is having a hard time finding the answer to why. Um, why is this happening now? You mentioned functional medicine, I love functional medicine and we, I just had an interview, with a functional medicine provider, uh, just about a couple of hours ago. it's, it's asking the question why, so why, why, why we, we want to get to the bottom of what's happening now when it comes to. a lot of people with headaches and migraines, they intuitively think that their neck is the problem. And so speaking directly to that person, I would say that I want to validate that your neck can be a major, major component of your experience and that finding relief. Specifically relief and an evaluation and treatment process. It may be challenging, but it is out there. I mean, if, if it's, if it's reaching out to us, that's great. but we, I want you to continue to search, like don't give up and don't take no for an answer, meaning You intuitively listening to your body, um, that should be listened to. And if you can't find a provider that will validate that, just kind of keep searching. and then in addition to that, just in general, anyone with headaches and migraines, I want them to, again, feel empowered that you can. make little changes throughout your day implements like we talked about, maybe a, an exercise program, specific stretches, to reduce the amount of stress on your neck and shoulders. There's little things that, people can do that can really have a big impact. our home. Model is based on providing people with like non medication approaches. and we find that very empowering because oftentimes people going through the healthcare system are beat up. They don't really feel like they can do anything about their situation. And so they're reliant on, uh, whatever medication they're prescribed, which oftentimes doesn't do the trick or it has side effects. And so it feels like there's not a good answer for people, but we are finding that there actually is a lot of hope. And so hang on to that hope.
Magic Barclay:
Thank you so much. Now, look, we love freebies here and I've got a freebie listed here for you. It's at www. noveraheadachecenter. com slash exercises. What is that? And what can people expect?
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah. What that is is actually It's a page on our site that, it's a resource for, little tips and tricks and, on social media. So on, on Tik TOK and Instagram. And on my podcast, a lot of what I do is, just educate, provide people with, um, little stretches that they can do. So in a podcast setting, it's hard to describe that. And so what we oftentimes do is lead people to that page. I've got three videos, my three most popular videos one of them is just explaining. Why you might have pain behind your eye. Another one is a shoulder stretch. And, uh, another one is three things that may indicate you have a neck problem. And then what people can do is sort of from that access a whole library of, uh, information that, is accessible on social media.
Magic Barclay:
That's very generous and those social media pages that you need to look at listeners are Facebook at Novera Headache Center, on TikTok at The Headache Doctor and on Instagram at Novera Headache Center. Dr. Jono, it's been wonderful chatting with you and I know, you know, there's so much more about headaches and migraines that we could really explore. Do you have a few parting words for the listeners? Uh,
Dr. Jono Taves:
yeah, I, so if there's a listener that is dealing with headaches and migraines, what I would say is one access my resources. And I say that in a way, like I would say most of the people, yeah, definitely most of the people that interact with me on, on my podcast or on social media. Um, they get a ton of benefit and you don't have to spend any money. You don't have to commit to anything. It's just all free. So I would say access that, but the goal is to provide you with hope. Okay. So oftentimes that comes from really understanding your situation and then feeling empowered. And that's, that's what we're all about. Uh, and so I would, I would want to infuse hope. Hopefully this conversation was that for you. but if you, if you're needing more, I would say access those resources.
Magic Barclay:
Well, there you go, listeners, lots of resources for you, Dr. Jono, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Jono Taves:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast, Magic.
Magic Barclay:
My pleasure. And listeners, thank you for joining us on the podcast and remember to go forth and create your magical life.