Wontaek Hwang, DC

07/09/2026

You fall off a ladder. You hit your head on the ground.

You go to the ER. CT scan comes back clean. No bleeding, no fracture. They hand you a painkiller and send you home.

Days later, you're still dealing with headaches. Brain fog. A heaviness in your head that won't go away. Dizziness that won't stop.

When you hit your head hard enough to get a concussion, it is almost physically impossible that your neck wasn't injured at the same time.

Here's what almost nobody tells you.

When you hit your head hard enough to get a concussion, it's almost physically impossible that your neck wasn't injured too.

It takes a massive amount of force to bruise the brain. It takes almost nothing to sprain the neck. The same way whiplash happens in a car crash. If your brain took a hit, your neck took one too.

06/30/2026

If you've dealt with headaches for years and no one has evaluated your upper neck, that may be a missing piece worth investigating.

Not every headache comes from the neck. But if your symptoms change with neck movement, if your neck becomes stiff before a headache starts, or if you've had a history of head or neck injury, your upper cervical spine deserves a closer look.

The question isn't whether every headache is caused by the neck.

The question is whether yours might be.

06/18/2026

Most headache treatment is designed to chase the pain after it shows up.

Acute medications shut down the attack once it starts. For a lot of people, they work. If those medications are working for you, keep going. Preventives can bring the count down, and none of that is wrong.

But there’s a question we don’t often ask: where is the pain actually coming from?

For some people, the answer is the neck.

It’s called cervicogenic headache. The head pain that originates in the neck, usually from the top three segments of our spine (C1, C2, and C3). These nerves connect to the ones that carry sensation in your head. When the nerves in this area are irritated, your brain can read the signal as a headache.

You can usually tell this one apart by how it behaves:

It tends to sit on one side and stay there
It often starts at the base of the skull and climbs toward the temple, forehead, or behind the eye
It gets worse when you turn or tip your head
Your neck feels stiff or tender before the head pain ramps up

If moving your neck changes your headache, your neck is part of the conversation.

Here’s the part we should be aware.

Cervicogenic headache, migraine, and tension headache are not the same problem, and they don’t respond to the same things. The strongest evidence for treating the neck is in cervicogenic headache, because that’s the one the neck is actually driving.

What upper cervical care does isn’t small. It’s specific.

We look at whether the atlas (C1, the top bone in your neck) is sitting where it should. When it’s off, it keeps pressure on the structures and nerves coming off the upper neck, the same nerves that refer pain up into the head.

When the pressure comes off, the muscles that have been bracing around it stop bracing. The tension starts to balance out and let go. Not because we forced it, but because the reason it was tight is gone.

Is your neck generating your headache?

If your neck is the source, treating the headache will never be enough.

References

Antonaci F, Bono G, Mauri M, Drottning M, Buscone S. Concepts leading to the definition of the term cervicogenic headache: a historical overview. J Headache Pain. 2005;6(6):462–6. PMCID: PMC3452304.

Al Khalili Y, Ly N, Murphy PB. Cervicogenic Headache. StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507862/

Image Source: By Stacey Colino -- National Geographic

06/11/2026

When you hit your head hard enough to get a concussion, it is almost physically impossible that your neck wasn't injured at the same time.

Think of it this way.

It takes a massive amount of force to bruise the brain, but it takes very little force to sprain the neck (like in whiplash). So, if your brain took a hit, your neck definitely suffered a "whiplash" effect along the way.

06/09/2026

When the head gets hit, the neck gets hit too. A concussion and a neck injury usually happen in the same instant, and they can feel almost the same: headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, brain fog. So the neck gets often overlooked. But the upper neck is packed with sensors wired into your balance and eye movement. When they're injured, your vision can suffer even when your eyes are perfectly fine. If vision problems are lingering after a concussion, addressing the neck dysfunction can ease visual symptoms left behind.

06/04/2026

When you sit the way most people sit, the pelvis rolls backward. The curve in your low back flattens out. The hamstrings pull. And the pressure inside your discs climbs.

There is no single perfect posture. Your spine wants neutral, and neutral isn't a position you buy. It's one we find.

Try it right now, in whatever you're sitting in.

Roll your pelvis all the way forward until your low back arches hard. Then roll it all the way back until the curve collapses into a slump. Now rock slowly between the two extremes. Somewhere in the middle, the arch stops fighting the slump and the muscles go quiet.

That's neutral. That's where our spine wants to be.

05/05/2026

As I transition into a new office in Northbrook, I'd like to invite friends and colleagues to come celebrate and mingle next week!

Join me May 12 · 12–1 PM for a ribbon-cutting with the Glenview Chamber of Commerce, a tour of the office, and a chance to connect with local health and wellness providers.

Sandwiches and drinks provided.

📍 2565 Shermer Road, Northbrook, IL

🔗 RSVP in bio — strongly recommended due to limited parking.

04/21/2026

75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. That stat gets thrown around for water bottle ads. But from a spinal perspective, it means something far more specific and far more damaging.

Your spinal discs live between each vertebral joint. They carry your bodyweight against gravity. They give your spine mobility. They absorb shock. The jelly-like nucleus inside handles that load remarkably well.

Here's what you don't see.

Every day, that fluid leaks out. Normal activity. Normal loading. Gradual and quiet loss. That's not the problem. The problem is what happens when it doesn't rehydrate itself.

Rehydration requires two things: (1) available fluid and (2) spinal movement.
When either is missing, the disc starts to shrink. The load (bodyweight against gravity) doesn't disappear, but it shifts.

It moves to the outer ring (the annulus), the tough, fibrous part of the disc that was never designed to be a primary weight-bearer. It was built to contain, not carry.

Now compound that with misalignment. Uneven distribution across an already compromised disc. You're not just adding stress. You're concentrating it. That's not just wear and tear.

That's the accelerated degenerative process.

And it started long before the pain did.

You can reverse it though.

Drink enough water. Keep moving. Stay aligned.

03/25/2026

Migraines don’t just start with pain. They begin earlier, with changes deep in the brain. Research shows that areas like the hypothalamus become active hours before the headache begins, which helps explain early warning signs like fatigue, mood changes, or food cravings.

Most treatments approach migraines reactively. Acute medications are designed to manage the pain once it arrives, and for many people they provide real relief. Preventive medications can reduce frequency for some. But neither addresses why the brain became sensitized in the