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

Coincidently I have literally just found an xray I have been looking for for ages.
(I was looking for a tax certificate at the time - so I do put things in safe places.)

It was taken in 1999 and shows a congenital fusion of c2 and c3.

When I went to a chiro about two years ago I had another batch of xrays done. When we were inspecting the xrays afterwards I was sure that the xrays he was showing me weren't mine - no fusion.

Couldn't find the old ones - now I have. Those weren't my xrays the chiro was working off. And no, if anything his treatment made me worse as my headache has been constant since this time.

So there you go.

The tooth pain sounds a bit like trigeminal neuralgia (tic doloroux). I don't think that would tie in with the neck/shoulder pain, though.

One reply at a time and thank you all.

I have been checked for TN. Again yesterday and told NO.
It was my thought as well.

Oh and no scan, but numerous x rays which show....absolutely nothing.
So the suggestion is it is a muscle problem because of the fibro and migraines.
However that may or may not be the teeth thing. At least I dont have a bad tooth

Dr Robbins posted this:

http://headachedrugs.com/column/cervicogenic-headache-a-mini-state-of-the-art/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

have you thought any more about the occipital nerve injs they offered you pen??

the bad thing about xrays---they have very, very limited diagnostic use. to really see what's going on with the neck, vertebrae, and other structures is with MRI. CT has some value as well. to see how the spinal chord is being affected, a mylogram is the best.

pen, i wish you could get an MRI done.

Dear Pen,
I agree with jwar and others who have said that I consider my neck and shoulder etc pain to be a wonderful gift from having head pain. The severity comes and goes, but I always have some kind of neck and shoulder pain, even down the spine at times.

Luckily I found a chiropractor who did not do too many manipulations to me. The best people to help are physical therapists. They are the little known gems who know more about how the body works than most orthopedic surgeons. They are tremendously well-educated about the mechanics of our body and have told me what kind of exercises to do and most importantly, which ones to NOT do, to help those areas.

I try to keep my neck loose, otherwise, if I am driving and have to suddenly whip my head around to see someone coming up from behind a truck way too fast, I could put my neck into a spasm that might take weeks to get rid of.

I worked out a series of exercises by combining things taught to me by various muscular therapists from chiro's, to PT's, to others who work with the muscle systems and do special kinds of massages. The key is consistency. If I do my few exercises once or twice a day, I can keep my neck loose enough so that I won't injure it through sudden movement. We all know how that kind of pain can linger.

Also, from experience, if you find yourself in a draft with cold air blowing on your neck, MOVE, and fast.

Motrin, Ibuprofen, Anaprox, all of those are the best for me when I am hurting. Most drs will give you a referral to a physical therapist who can work with you to develop the kind of exercises that are best for you.

The ones I do are fairly intuitive: I just turn my head in every direction, and then angle it in various ways and turn it in those same directions. Here is one example: I gently turn my head to the left as far as I can comfortably go, and then try to push just a tiny bit beyond that point---be careful. Then I try to touch my right ear to my right shoulder, and then turn my head again to the left while my head is held at an angle.

One important thing a PT told me: never ever do neck circles, and if anyone tells you to do them, run, they don't know what they are doing and will inevitably hurt you in several ways. Mainly I place my head at various angles and just turn it in different directions. But be very very gentle, and if you are hurting badly, take a nsaid half an hour to an hour before doing any neck exercises.

You will be surprised at how much some simple movements will help you. Just because something seems so simple and easy doesn't mean it cannot have an important impact on our pain. It often helps my head pain a little bit too. But the main thing is that by doing the exercises, I don't add to my head pain.
Good luck,
Mishkyn

Topical NSAIDs might help, too. Voltaren gel has been out a bit longer; I don't recall the name of the newer one. I was quite skeptical when I first heard of this, but patients speak well of it.

I had bad neck pain too, went up the back of my head to shoulders. Had vertigo frequently, elbow was screaming at me and lost about 80% use of my hand. Physical therapy helped! The problem was the muscles in the neck were so bad from the migraines a nerve was getting pinched. Each migraine the neck tightens up again. I just do my exercises at home now. Good luck!

Hi Pen

Sorry you are going through this hell. I've been away or else I would have posted earlier.

I have reffered myself to a physio by going to the local hospital and complaining of the unbearable pain in the past. I did this at minor injuries. They are a totally brilliant team in Tavistock hospital.

I am writing because I have come from pain, dizziness and all that migraine stuff to being able to do more every day as a result of a recent refferal to a general physio. I didn't actually have much faith in this. It was in the general theory of you don't know which chicken or egg to knock on the head, so attack the one that's nearest and hope it has an affect. I'm on no meds, just exercises, and am driving properly again, going into supermarkets, and by September they rekon I will be able to go back to work. This from not being able to go round the house safe, or think, or know really who I was anymore. I know we are all different, but hey there is still hope and physio has definately helped me. Don't think they are gone! But what a difference!

You should I believe be able to reffer yourself in this way, tell them it is getting worse and is unbearable and I doubt that they would be anything less than sympathetic and try to help. physio is so much gentler than Chiro too, having experienced both I know where I would preffer to go. This time they fixed my really painful knee too, last time it was my neck as I could only look left all the time without screaming.

I hope they start treating you soon Pen,

best wishes

Di

Hi Di,

I have now had 4 appointments with our surgery physio lady.
She has worked mainly around the occipital, she says my neck is very tight.

i get one more appointment and then she is kindly going to try some trigger point for me.
This is of her own volition.

I do think my neck has been a bit less painful, but early days.
Teeth problem is much the same though.

Thanks.

regards

Di

Pen,

Can you describe what you mean by teeth pain? This is not a typical symptom I hear about. My daughter had problems with migraines and nausea ( which is how migraines present in children often times) when she was younger. This went on for several years even after many trips to specialists etc... Finally we found out quite by accident that she had several impacted eye teeth that had not come in properly. After she had those removed by the orthodontic surgeon we noticed that she never had a problem with headaches again. And that was about 8 years ago. The frustrating part is when we had her dentist look back at past Xrays, you could clearly see the impacted teeth up above her other teeth and the dentist had missed it. Her problems could have been stopped years earlier. Needless to say we got a new dentist!

I don't know what you have found about your teeth but something like this or TMJ could be culprits.

sorry to be brief, feeling lousy. had extensive xrays on teeth and seen specialist. Nothing shows up at all. They also excluded TN, but said it is probably myofascial from the constant migraines and Fibro....thanks.

One thing I have had great luck with for my neck and shoulder problems (which are bad) is ART Therapy (Active Release Techniques).

I personally can't join in on the condemnation of Chiros. It has improved the quality of my life greatly, mainly by alleviating my horrible neck and shoulder pain which no Dr. was able to help with (other than to feed me pills). There are bad Chiros out there though just like there are bad Dr.'s and Dentists. In my province they are fairly well regulated now, along with RMT's (and soon acupuncturists).

I get a specific type of Chiropractic done using an Activator though because manual adjustments were too hard on my neck: http://www.activator.com/ . A few clinics in my area use this method, especially when dealing with headaches. It works just as well for me, but isn't as harsh on the body. Using the typical manual adjustments, I would initially feel worse for a day, then feel a lot better. Now I just get instant relief.

My Chiro performs both the ART and the Activator.