In the past, people often think that headache is caused by the problem of nerves and blood vessels in the head, but do not pay attention to the role played by the neck, so the treatment is “headache medicine, foot pain medicine”, such as playing drugs or doing acupuncture, physical therapy, massage in the head pain, oral pain relief tablets, etc.. The treatment effect of these methods is often unsatisfactory, and the situation of “patients with headaches and doctors with headaches” is eventually formed. In fact, most headaches are caused by cervical spine problems.
The concept of cervicogenic headache was first introduced by an American doctor in 1983. After nearly 10 years of debate and research, cervicogenic headache was finally recognized by experts in many disciplines and in 1990, it was recognized by the International Headache Society. In 1995, it was pointed out that degeneration of the cervical spine and muscle spasm of the neck are the direct causes of cervicogenic headache, so cervicogenic headache is also called cervicogenic headache.
I. What are the characteristics of cervicogenic headache?
Cervicogenic headache is caused by cervical spondylosis and acute and chronic cervical spine injury, and is related to the stimulation of the nerves in the neck. Patients with cervicogenic headache tend to have stiff neck and inflexible movement, and their head or neck is usually traumatized. The headache is characterized by repeated dull or aching pain in the occiput, top of the head, temples, forehead or around the orbits, accompanied by pain in the upper part of the neck. On examination, there is mostly pain around the neck on pressure.
II. Why headache is related to the neck
Most of the nerves in the head come from the neck. The nerves are sent from the spinal cord and travel upward to the head, passing through many bones and muscles on the way. If lesions occur in the muscles or bones of the neck, such as cervical degeneration or trauma to the neck muscles, the nerves passing through this area will be affected and abnormal changes will occur, and these abnormal changes will lead to headaches.
III. Whether cervicogenic headache is related to age and gender
The relationship between age and cervicogenic headache is not clear enough, and further research is needed. Most cervicogenic headaches occur between the ages of 20 and 60, but it is not uncommon to see younger ones, and the youngest patient we encountered was only 6 years old. In recent years, there has been an increasing trend of cervicogenic headache patients in secondary school students, which may be related to excessive study pressure and prolonged head-down reading, resulting in cervical spine or neck muscle injury.
Clinical work has found that female patients with cervicogenic headache are significantly more than male patients. Some studies have shown that female patients are twice as common as male patients. The exact cause of this situation is not clear and may be related to the more sensitive psychological response of women.
IV. 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 physical therapy. However, since the main cause of cervicogenic headache is injury or aseptic inflammation of cervical spine and neck muscle tissues, these traditional treatments, if applied improperly, can cause the injury to worsen and accelerate the disease process.
In recent years, the method of injecting anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs into the onset site has been widely used in clinical practice. It allows the drug to fully function locally to reduce and eliminate soft tissue inflammation, thus relieving or eradicating cervicogenic headache. For patients with long onset and more intense headache, minimally invasive interventional analgesic surgery can be performed. This procedure has the advantages of no incision, little trauma and exact efficacy, which is a more ideal treatment for intractable cervicogenic headache.
V. What to pay attention to in preventing cervicogenic headache
1. Maintain a good sleeping position and working posture. Therefore, it is important to choose a suitable pillow and put the head and neck in a proper position during sleep to prevent cervical spine and neck muscle strain diseases. Change your posture frequently at work, avoid the same posture for too long, insist on doing interval exercises, and change the type of work when necessary.
2, self-protection and prevention of trauma to the head and neck. In life, work, especially in the car and airplane, the use of seat belts can reduce the occurrence of head and neck trauma, reduce the degree of injury.
3.Treat the acute injury of head and neck in time. In the acute injury period, should pay attention to keep bed rest, using neck brace and other appliances for neck braking protection, if necessary, can also take oral pain tablets and other drugs to reduce inflammation and analgesia, try to make the injured cervical spine and muscle trauma reaction to the minimum degree.
4.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.
Sixth, how high is the right pillow
A pillow with the right height can keep the spine in normal curvature and the muscles, ligaments and joint capsules in relative balance, thus relaxing the muscles and nerves, allowing smooth breathing and normal blood supply to the brain.
1, people who are used to lying on their backs: before going to bed can be flattened in the middle of the pillow, the neck is padded at the pillow, the pillow is compressed by the head after the neck pillow height and their fist height equivalent.
2, people who are used to lying on their side: pillow height should be consistent with their side of the shoulder width.
Generally speaking, the height of the pillow no absolute standard, it is related to each person’s fat and thin, shoulder width, neck length, to make the cervical vertebrae neither forward flexion, nor sideways bending, to maintain a proper back extension position, feel comfortable as appropriate.