Symptoms of headache in cervical spondylosis

summary

Cervical spondylosis headache is a common disease encountered in clinical pain diagnosis and treatment. There are many causes, including a type of headache with neck tenderness, headache related to cervical nerve stimulation. The incidence is very high, the clinical manifestations are complex, headache lasts for a long time, and the treatment is difficult, which has attracted more and more attention. Tell us about the symptoms of cervical spondylosis headache.

Symptoms of headache in cervical spondylosis

The age of patients with cervicogenic headache is mostly 20-60 years old, but the younger is not uncommon. The author met many young patients in the work, the youngest is only 7 years old. This disease is more common in women. In the early stage, most of them felt uncomfortable in the occipital part, the back of the ear and the lower part of the ear. Later, they became stuffy or sore, and gradually appeared pain. The pain can extend to the forehead, temporal, top and neck. Some patients may have pain in shoulder, back and upper limbs on the same side at the same time. The pain can be relieved. With the progress of the course of disease, the pain gradually aggravated, persisted, the remission period shortened, and the paroxysmal aggravation. Cold, fatigue, drinking and emotional excitement can induce the aggravation of pain.

Cervicogenic headache often does not show in its pathological change site, its pain site is often vague, diffuse and far involved, can appear referred to pain similar to sinus or eye disease. Some patients with pain accompanied by tinnitus, ear swelling, eye stuffy swelling, neck stiffness. Most patients like to use hand pressure to relieve pain when they have a pain attack. Oral NSAIDs can relieve headache. The incidence rate of cervix headache is higher in workers who work at desk. The longer the course of disease, the lower the work efficiency, attention and memory, the lower the mood, irritability, fatigue, and the lower the quality of life and work.

The examination can find obvious tenderness below the ear, beside the cervical spine and behind the breast. Patients with longer course of disease may have tenderness points in the posterior part of neck, temporal part, top and occipital part. In some patients, the local sense of touch and acupuncture were weakened, and in some patients, the sense of smell, taste and tongue and cheek were decreased. Some of the patients were positive in the pressure test and buttress test. But there are also patients without obvious signs. There were more white hairs on the affected side than on the contralateral side. X-ray examination showed different degrees of cervical degenerative changes, some showed cervical foramen stenosis, proliferation of anterior and posterior edges of vertebral body, or spinous process widened and thickened, supraspinous ligament calcification. CT examination showed no special changes, a small number of patients could see cervical disc herniation, but it was not necessarily closely related to the location and degree of pain.

matters needing attention

1. Keep a good sitting posture, generally adopt natural end sitting position, head slightly forward, chest keep straight. Use a seat with back support or a soft pillow at the back of the waist to keep the waist slightly forward. 2. The height of the table and chair is appropriate. If the height of the table and chair is not appropriate, it will make the head lean back or bend forward excessively, resulting in neck and shoulder muscle strain. Binocular head up or down 15-20 degrees to see the computer screen is the more appropriate angle. 3. Avoid the neck and waist in a position for a long time. When you feel a little tired, you can walk away from the seat, or get up and leave every other hour, do some simple stretching exercises, and learn to self-care. Specific can do slow neck flexion and extension, left and right rotation, waist can do forward bending and backward extension, as well as slow left and right rotation activities, 3-5 minutes can achieve the effect of relaxing neck and waist muscles.