Headaches that happen due to occipital neuralgia can be quite painful. The affliction requires a unexpected but intermittent piercing, taking pictures, or shock-like pain. This will final from the few seconds to many minutes.

Occipital neuralgia is usually a sort of nerve pain that may lead to headaches. It could come about when There's tension or harm to the occipital nerves. These commence from the neck and run up the sides of The pinnacle.

The exact cause of occipital neuralgia stays mysterious. It is assumed that discomfort in the nerves that offer the back of The top contributes to ON. There is normally no crystal clear cause of your nerve discomfort. On the other hand, it is believed that: 

Healthcare providers normally use occipital nerve blocks that will help alleviate pain from specific sorts of headaches when other treatment solutions haven’t worked. An occipital nerve block might help handle various headache disorders, which includes:

Variety III occipital condyle fracture, unspecified side, subsequent face for fracture with schedule healing

“Nerves can become entrapped because of muscle spasms or head or neck trauma, which include whiplash,” states pain administration specialist Shrif Costandi, MD. “From time to time we don’t understand what causes it.”

“Cluster headaches bring about a number of headaches throughout the day that previous among 15 minutes to 3 hrs,” she adds.

Treatments for releasing the occipital nerve include things like therapeutic massage therapy or applying heat over the location of pain.

“A typical cause is cervical arthritis. Having said that, secondary causes similar to a tumor or an infection can Participate in a job, based on the clinical scenario,” Dr. Strachan points out. “Having neck pain and headache doesn't instantly suggest you might have cervicogenic headache.”

On examination, BK claimed distress with palpation in excess of the posterior scalp region innervated with the increased and lesser occipital nerves. Though her medical presentation was most about for occipital neuralgia, the differential diagnosis involved migraine, cervicogenic headache, Arnold-Chiari malformation, posterior fossa or cervical mass, and vascular lesions.

If People treatments don’t present relief, interventional pain specialists can perform an occipital nerve block. That’s when an area anesthetic and steroid are injected around the irritated nerve.

The response to this treatment may differ from affected individual to affected individual. Some may remain headache-cost-free for your period of days. Other individuals could stay headache-totally free for months.  

Lasting pain relief for occipital neuralgia and cervicogenic headache can demand a number of a number of injections.

Even click here so, Actual physical evaluation and evaluation from the background on the pain should really expose important discrepancies that can help bring on the correct diagnosis.