Can anyone diagnosis this damned neck pain for me and suggest what to do?

Please. Yes I know I have mentioned it before, but it is not getting any better and I dont know.
Maybe some of it sounds like something you have???
A: What it is
B: What to do about it.

Briefly. It is on the right side of my neck. It is tender and worse under the occipital and where my neck hits my shoulder.
It grabs my teeth and puts them under tremendous pressure, that hurts a lot. It's my top teeth, but I dont have any bottom teeth back there. I can feel it on top of my head as well in an area of about 2 inches across. Also right outer eye.

Anything physical exacerbates it, but I dont know what starts it. Today it just came. I was sitting using the lap top waiting for the Triptan to kick in on the other side of my head...which it did.
I ended up with a worse pain on the right than the one on the left I took it for....
Triptans do not fix it, and neither so far do any NSAIDS.

If anyone can suggest what the Hell this is ,please do, and then I can hopefully find the right medication of therapy to improve it.
It is driving me crazy and I am making light of it here......

Oh and I have seen the dentist, and he thought it was some kind of "nerve" pain.
And the GP referred me for physio....I'm still waiting for an appointment 8 week on.

You all know I want to do this trip to visit my friend.
I have NO chance with this going on, absolutely none.
Cant last more than 20 minutes in the car.

Thanks for reading.

Pen

you definitely can go on with this pen, i cant think what it is but the only good news is that you can self referr now to the physio, just phone your local hosp physio and ask to self referr, they eirther get uyou in or give you excercises for 2-3 weeks and then get you in. it would be a lot quicker than these 8 weeeks youve been waiting. let them know really how bad it is!!! take care

Can I do that Dawn. No one told me. I am waiting for the surgery physio.
I dont even know if it is what I need. might be totally the wrong thing.
I dont mind paying, but what do I need?
Chiro. Osteo???


Dentist said nerve/sinus. GP didnt know.
P

go with physi first, i got my stroke from chiro treatment for migraine. see what physio says

Pen,

I put a similar message on another thread...

A man I know, who has been a practicing physical therapist for many years, says that most people have their shoulders and necks all knotted up before they get out of high school! I know that seems incredible, but he has worked on thousands of people over several decades.

He's the kind of person who rather than try to assign causes, reports on what he's observed and works on getting rid of the symptoms. When I pressed him on the issue and asked him to speculate on why people develop such physical soreness and tension so early in life, he said simply, "Modern life.".

I'm thinking that if so called normal people develop neck pain so early, what chance do we have, with our multiple problems?

At least in my case, I'm pretty sure of the original cause. I had a neck/head injury when I was 3. I didn't get any treatment for it. My migraines started at 4, as well as I can remember. Perhaps I started getting them immediately after the injury.

Chris

dawn.binks wrote:go with physi first, i got my stroke from chiro treatment for migraine. see what physio says

You got a stroke from chiro treatment?
How on earth did that occur, wow?

P

I was informed by my neurosurgeon (one of the best in the country) to NEVER get chiro. He said people really don't understand the things that can happen from it.

I've replied to your other threads, but I have the exact same sort of neck/shoulder/head pain that you do. I view it as a facet of my migraines. The only thing that truly helps me is exercise. The neck and shoulder need to be loosened up and stretched out very thoroughly on a daily basis. A physiotherapist will give you a list of exercises to accomplish this and you should follow them diligently.

My mother was an RN and had had a car accident. Due to a neck injury she had several small strokes and had to have a clamp put on her carotid artery at Mayo Clinic. When the clamp was removed after a years time several nerves had twisted around the clamp and had to be severed. As a result the right side of her throat was paralyzed.

She REFUSED to let a chiro do any type of neck manipulation on her, no matter how many times they said they could "fix" her. She said there were to many things that could go wrong with so many nerves in a confined area. She made my sister and I promise to never have neck manipulations done because of the stroke risk.

jwar wrote:

I've replied to your other threads, but I have the exact same sort of neck/shoulder/head pain that you do. I view it as a facet of my migraines. The only thing that truly helps me is exercise. The neck and shoulder need to be loosened up and stretched out very thoroughly on a daily basis. A physiotherapist will give you a list of exercises to accomplish this and you should follow them diligently.

Amen to that! Well said.

Chris

yes jwar, my neuro when i was in hosp and they were trying to work out had caused the stroke just groaned and put his head in his hands when my husband said id been under a chiro, i was the 3rd stroke pt hed had from chiro treatment. pen the chiro really yank your neck around and suddenly crick it to the left then the right. you have 4 arteries feeding the brain, 2 in the front of the neck everyone can feel then 2 smaller ones that run through the vertebae and when theyy yanked my neck to the side it cut off the artery as they put a kink in it stopping the oxygen to the brain! it is a definite no no! reading my first post in reply pen i wrote you can go on with this and had meant to put you CANT! what difference a letter makes!!! sorry! do get on the phone to the pyhsio tho!

I agree with some of the other comments regarding chiros.
You know that homeopathy is on top of my s**t list. The second spot goes to chiropractors. Stay away from them at all cost. They are quacks of the highest order. These guys have no medical qualifications and can trigger strokes with their dodgy manipulations.

Physio is a good idea, but I do suspect that your neckpain is related to migraines. I know when I have a really bad migraine I can barely hold my head straight. It just kind of lolls about. I desperate moments I sometimes jump into a hot bath in the middle of the night, just to get rid of some of the tension and pain.

I know that the guy who did my surgery also administers botox into the neck area. Specifically for those who's pain is concentrated in that area. Maybe this is something you want to look into.

Love

P.

Thank you for all your comments and the warnings are noted. My friend got rid of his migraines with chiro which is where the idea came from. He wasnt as bad as me, but is so much better. BUT noted, thanks for letting me know.

Physio, there are a million.....Neuro said "manipulative physio". Not totally sure what he meant.

I am wearing my soft collar for an hour this morning because I woke with no pain and soon as I started to move my head it kicked in.

See what this tells me.

I should add that in desperation yesterday I took 2 Excedrin. They actually helped.
Not with the teeth thing, but the neck did improve.

Today my teeth have not been hurting, then i went into the garden to hang out the washing.
Its a warm sunny day. Since then, the neck is a bit worse, but my teeth kicked in.
The dentist said its sinus/nerves.....given the pollen count, could it be?

My problems started with neck pain also. I tried everything - Chiro, acupuncture, lyrica, massage, physio (which made it much worse by the way) and several rounds of cortisone injections. The pain and headaches kept getting worse until I was diagnosed with chronic daily migraine. It turns out some 60% of people with migraines also have neck pain. I thought the neck problems caused the headaches but actually it is the other way around.

While the medications for migraine never worked for me, a plan with supplements (natural progesterone, vitamin D, iodine, magnesium and omega3) is working wonders. Not only are my headaches greatly reduced but my neck pain is completely gone as well. It is amazing.

Really interesting thank you.

Just started on vitamin D and looking into the other things too.
My friend in SLC in on bio identical (we are old )

Her dr is good and she is no fool.
She spoke to him about me and said the Fibro and the IBS go hand in hand.
The neck pain goes with the fibro and the migraines fit in between somewhere.
He mentioned looking at nutrition and Vit D, Omega 3 were two of them.
He cautioned the Magnesium to me, only because of my IBS, so to go very gently.

Thanks
Pen

Same thing with me, left side headache, left side SCM muscle pain. It's better now, both headache and neck pain, but I had a lot of neuromuscular therapy visits. I also do stretches about an hour and a half a day. Forty five minutes in the morning and the same in the evening, with some SCM stretches in-between. I still have headaches, but they are low level.

As to supplements, I do not believe they have helped at all. The small dose of lamotrigine helps a lot with the dizziness. But, I have to watch it, since it gives me heart burn. My next neuro visit, I will have to ask for extended release lamotrigine. Maybe that will be easier on my stomach.

But, if I get tired or I am in the same position too long, like being in bed or driving for an hour or so, the neck pain and headaches return. At night, I get up and use an ice pack on the side of the head.

Martin

It's like the chicken and the egg, which came first, the neck pain or the migraines? Which causes which?

My nuero has been concerned from day one about the amount of tension I carry in my neck and shoulders and seems pretty certain that the frequency of my M's is connected to the neck tension. *NOT* that the tension causes all of my M's, but that it contributes to some of them - their frequency and severity. I have exercises to do, and (when I was employed and could afford it) used to get massages to work out the tension, which helped. Now I'm under more tension, which of course I carry in my neck and shoulders. Vicious cycle.

Anyway, exercises don't help as much anymore, and I can't afford massage therapy, but perhaps that might help, Pen?

I just read this about neck pain and migraines.

http://www.healthcentral.com/migraine/understanding-migraine-529730-5.html?ic=6047

I read that Linda. So we shouldn't delay seeking help. BUT, I still haven't had any help.
Is there help??? ~Where is it....

P

After my car accident last fall I had acupuncture done for my neck. I have to admit (I was skeptical), that it not only worked for the accident neck pain but has improved the pain I get with migraines.

That is good news Linda. I did try acupuncture, but it didnt help at all.
Actually that's not true ,I had a bad knee at the time and it fixed it.
Not a thing for the head or neck though.

P

Pen - How long did you do it? I did it for 3 months 3 times a week. I didn't think it was doing anything either until I was done with the treatments and then I realized during migraines my neck was much better than it was in the past.

Pen, sorry if you've posted this already.

Have you had an MRI or CT scan of your neck?

From the orthopedic and neurosurgeons to the family docs, they really can't give you a true idea of what is going on with your neck without knowing it's structure. From there, they can suggest therapy, treatment/surgery.

I have some very grupy vertabrae in my neck (C6-C7), added in with splondy. & lots of calcium build up. Quite sore, so I understand how you feel.

-mgb

I had this for years and when my doctor finally suggested a cervical neck MRI it turns out my neck was severely degenerated and was causing the neck pain, spasms and probably migraines as well as other symptoms - numb arm and leg, etc. Eventually I'll probably have spinal surgery.

I went to a chiro for it in the early phase and the neck adjustment made it worst. Now I know why.

since i've had neck pain forever, naturally i thought that my ruptured/disintegrated disc at C3-4 was surely the cause of my head pain. the doctors were never sure it was connected, as they have seen too many cases where surgery failed to fix the pain. unfortunately for me, it wasn't the cause.

i had ACDF in 2005. it fixed the dangerously-close-to-the-spinal-cord disc, but did nothing for the head pain. drat drat and more drat.

(acdf stands for anterior cervical discectomy and fusion). it had to be fixed, so i'm not sorry i did the serious surgery, during which i nearly "bled-out" on the table. yikes. but since i had a neurosurgeon and NOT an orthopedic surgeon do it, i think that was the better choice.

i do blame years of chiropractic for ruining my disc........all chiros would deny that, of course. dianne