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Hello Jennifer, I read your comments and they are similar ( but different) than mine. I have pain in the back off my head when laying down and my scalp is sensitive to touch, but its much worse than that, I also have face pain, jaw pain, pain behind my ear. I just did a nerve ablation of c1,c2,c3,c4 and I'm three weeks in, however, I have not seen any improvement. I know this pain I have I is related to my cervical spine, as movement can light up the nerves and I cannot lay on my right or left side for that matter. Sleeping is difficult and my pain ranges from day to day. I have started to get pain when eating now... so, I have symptoms of both Occipital Neuralgia and Trigeminal Neuralgia. Do you have a doctor that has experience with upper cervical spine issues and treating people with ON/TN? I'm 58 and I don't want to be on a lifetime of anticonvulsants ( which fail over time) not to mention the side effects. Any help is appreciated.
Replies to "Hello Jennifer, I read your comments and they are similar ( but different) than mine. I..."
I think whatever the problem is the headache sounds like Occipital Neuralgia that might be due to the Occipital never compression. I have heard that Occipital Nerve decompression surgery is a very promising fix to that problem as well as the Trigeminal Neuralgia. Sometime that would help your neck and possibly shoulder pain and muscle spasm. Good luck
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@lisa2022 Hi Lisa. Have you been seen at Mayo as a patient? I saw in your other comments something about a neurologist. One question I have is what is the condition of your cervical spine that is causing the pain and leading to the ablations?
I have had similar symptoms with pain on the back of my head, and misalignment of my jaw with jaw or face pain at times. That has happened when my upper cervical vertebrae were twisted or tilted by muscle spasms. There are so many muscles attached to the vertebrae, that twisting them will stretch one side and cause pain up the back side of my head. I also have thoracic outlet syndrome and one side of my neck is tighter than the other and probably causes the independent rotation of the vertebrae. I had vertigo a few times. I had a compressed spinal cord because of a collapsed C5/C6 disc and bone spurs that were pressing into it, and I had spine decompression surgery at Mayo. I still work on the TOS in physical therapy.
From what you describe with increased pain when laying on either side, it may be that your neck is not fully supported and not in line with the body. If there are narrowed spaces around the nerve roots, side bending could bring on pain. I did experience that because my disc had collapsed 50%, and if I bent my neck to the side, the bone contacted the nerve exiting at that level and brought on very sharp pains. If your jaw is out of alignment. it can cause pain because it can compress the very small spaces where nerves travel between the angle of the jaw and your ear. Having cervical vertebrae moving around, and a misaligned jaw will throw everything off and I have dealt with that in physical therapy.
Can you give me some more information about cervical spine issues? Do you have recent imaging and a diagnosis of a structural spine issue?