Have you ever heard of cervicogenic headache? In the past, many people thought that headache was a problem with the organs, nerves and blood vessels in the head, so they always conducted various tests on the head to find the cause, and treated the headache as well as the foot. However, a considerable number of headache patients often can neither find the cause nor get effective treatment. The reason for this is that people neglect to look for the cause in the neck. In fact, many people have cervicogenic headache. Because the symptoms are mainly in the head, but the cause is the irritation of the nerves in the neck, it is clinically hidden and has the characteristic of “sounding the east to hit the west”, so it is often not recognized by people. What is cervicogenic headache? Cervicogenic headache is a type of headache with a high incidence and is directly related to the irritation of the nerves in the neck and is often caused by cervical spondylosis or acute or chronic injury to the cervical spine. Degeneration or trauma of the cervical spine and persistent spasm of the cervical muscles cause aseptic inflammation, edema or ischemia of the nerves that emanate from the cervical medulla and travel up to the head, thus triggering the headache. Since its introduction in the United States in 1983, cervicogenic headache has been recognized by the International Headache Society in 1990 and is now widely accepted by clinicians. What are the characteristics of cervicogenic headache? The incidence of cervicogenic headache is significantly higher in women than in men. It is thought that this may be related to the fact that women have a higher nerve fiber density than men, that they have a lower pain threshold and are more sensitive to nociception, and that women may be more sensitive to psychological reactions. The early clinical manifestations of cervicogenic headache are discomfort in the posterior occipital region and the lower part behind the ear, dullness or soreness, and gradually extending to the top of the head, temples and orbits. As the disease progresses, the pain becomes progressively more severe, and the headache persists with shorter periods of remission. Patients mostly describe throbbing, explosive, tightening pain, etc. Some are also accompanied by nausea and vomiting, and in severe cases, even fainting. At the same time, these patients are mostly accompanied by discomfort and pain in the upper part of the neck, and on close examination, there are mostly pressure points in the neck. How to treat cervicogenic headache? The traditional treatment of cervicogenic headache is mainly based on non-surgical treatments such as acupuncture, massage, tui-na and physiotherapy. However, since the main cause of cervicogenic headache is in the neck, improper treatment may cause serious damage to the cervical vertebrae, cervical medulla and muscles, accelerating the disease process and even endangering the life, so treatment must be carried out in a regular hospital. In recent years, local nerve block therapy has been widely used in clinical practice, with remarkable clinical efficacy. It injects anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs directly into the affected nerves, which can give full play to the drugs locally, reduce and eliminate soft tissue inflammation, improve local blood circulation, and thus relieve or eradicate cervicogenic headache. For those with long-onset headaches and stubborn headaches, minimally invasive interventional analgesic surgery can be performed. In addition, in addition to cervicogenic headache, cervical spine pathology can also cause some symptoms in the shoulder and upper limbs, such as recurrent “frozen shoulder”, numbness, pain and weakness in the upper limbs, and in some cases, vertigo associated with head movement. Tips: How to prevent cervicogenic headache? 1. Maintain a good working posture. Avoid prolonged head-down work, change your posture frequently, and insist on doing workplace exercises. 2.Choose a suitable pillow and develop good sleep posture habits. Sleep should be maintained in a suitable position, so that the cervical spine is neither forward flexion, nor lateral bending, to maintain a proper posterior extension position, so the pillow selection has certain considerations. People who are used to lying on their backs: can choose a pillow in the middle slightly flat, the neck is slightly high pillow, the pillow is head compression after the neck pillow height should be equivalent to their fist height. People who are used to lying on their side: the height of the pillow should be consistent with their side of the shoulder width. 3, learn to protect the head and neck. In the car and airplane, pay attention to wearing seat belts, appropriate use of cushion pillows to reduce the occurrence of head and neck collision and whipping-like injury; once the head and neck trauma, timely use of neck brace, try to avoid neck activities, take the correct form of moving. 4, timely treatment of acute head and neck injuries. In the acute injury period, attention should be paid to maintaining bed rest, the use of neck brace and other appliances for neck braking protection, if necessary, you can also take oral pain tablets and other drugs to reduce inflammation and analgesia, as far as possible to minimize the injured cervical spine and muscle trauma reaction. 5.Avoid excessive mental work and long-term mental tension. Excessive mental labor and long-term mental tension are common features of cervicogenic headache patients, and they are also important triggers of cervicogenic headache attacks. Therefore, it is very meaningful to pay attention to the combination of work and rest and adjust the psychological state frequently to control cervicogenic headache.