Those who’ve never had a migraine can’t understand. Those who get them know all too well how debilitating they can be.

“People who have migraines can’t function in their normal day-to-day life because it is the type of headache that will totally debilitate them, to be completely bedridden, medicated and nonfunctional,” said Dr. Jeffrey Harris, a dentist who practices in Kennett Township.

Harris, a traditional dentist who practiced for 24 years in Chadds Ford Township, now spends roughly 35 percent of his practice treating people with migraines and other chronic headaches. He said he does it successfully without drugs, needles or pain.

Harris said he moved to treating headaches after taking a course on the subject from a North Carolina dentist.

What he learned, he said, was that all chronic headaches, be they sinus related, menstrual related, tension headaches or full-blown migraines stem from the same root.

“All headache pathways go through the same spot in the brain stem and that’s within the dentists wheelhouse. It’s part of what we treat. All the pain pathways go through the same cervical nucleus in the brain.”

That pathway is sensitive to dental related issues affected by the jaws, jaw muscles and joints that lead to an imbalance of the teeth, something he referred to as “dental related force imbalances.”

Harris explained that nature prefers symmetry when people open and close their mouths and that there should be equal pressure on both sides of the mouth.

“What we find is that when people are out of sync by more than 5 percent left or right, it causes the jaw to come closed on an angle, which pulls on the muscles, which then triggers tension into that cervical nucleus in the brain,” he said.

The result is chronic headaches. He’s talking about people who get headaches daily or four to eight times a month, not someone who gets the occasional headache.

And not everyone who gets chronic headaches has a situation that Harris can address. But about 90 percent are, and those he does treat.

Drugs are not the solution, he said. Whether the medications are prescription or over the counter, they don’t have any long-term positive effect and actually make matters worse, he said.

He said drugs actually have a negative result in that, over time, they make that neural pathway in the brain more sensitive to the impulses that trigger headaches.

“When you medicate, what you’re doing to those cells is turning the volume up, so the cells respond much faster and with more intensity [to the pain impulses]. So the next time you get a headache you need less of the symptom to trigger the effect. The drugs changes the chemistry in the brain stem in a negative way where they amplify the input signals.”

What Harris employs are several modalities. They include manipulation, the type a chiropractor or osteopath might use, electric stimulation, ultra sound and a cold laser. There are also homecare devices for some patients.

The cold laser is used to remove inflammatory issues in muscles of the head and neck. The ultra sound works on inflammation and swelling and the electrical stimulation works to change brain chemistry in an opposite way that drugs change the chemistry.

Harris said the stim unit he gives patients for home use also helps them treat anxiety, depression, and inflammation as well as pain.

He added that there’s nothing new to these modalities, but putting them together with a bite adjustment and a rehabilitative oral appliance is what makes the program successful over the long haul.

“With no needles, no drugs and no pain, we can generally, within 90 days, have you symptom free. This is a long-term solution.”

He said he has the most success with people who can’t listen to music or even get out of a dark room when a migraine strikes.

“We’re giving them their life back,” he said. “There’s real hope to regain quality of life, pain free and symptom free.”

Harris said the treatment is often covered by insurance, but his practice offers financing options whenever it's not fully covered.

His Migraine Headache Relief Center of Pennsylvania is in the Harris Dental Arts building behind the WSFS (the old Hill’s Seafood site) near Bayard Road and Route 1.

For more information, visit www.headachereliefpa.com or phone 610-388-6789