Spine injuries are very dangerous, intense, and unpredictable. With the spine covering such a large portion of the body – and the nervous system – it can be hard to tell how a spine injury will affect you. But there is a certain connection between certain spinal injuries and the presence of migraines. Can a spine injury cause headaches to appear more frequently?
Can a Spine Injury Cause Headaches?
Our pain treatment experts at CPRM can help you locate the source of your headaches by assessing the state of your spinal pain. Certain injuries can directly lead to migraines and muscle headaches, which will worsen over time without treatment.
Cause of Increased Headaches
To determine whether your frequent headaches result from spinal injury, your doctor will check out a few different areas of the body. Due to the nature of your spinal injury, the damage could be affecting your head and neck more than you know. Different types of spine injuries can result in headaches, including:
Cervical Damage
The most common type of injury exists in the cervical spine and causes the facet joints to degenerate. When this occurs, there is increased pain, tension, and tightness in the back of the neck and head. Over time, this tightness becomes more severe and causes headaches to occur.
Muscle Strain
If a cervical spine injury becomes inflamed or infected, it will swell up and tighten the muscles beyond their normal capacity. All of this is happening at the base of the skull, which contributes to constant headaches. If you are dealing with this type of injury, you may also find it difficult to move your head due to the tensions you are dealing with.
Symptoms of Spinal Headaches
If you are like some of our CPRM patients, you may already have trouble dealing with a few migraines a month. Any type of spinal injury, no matter how minimal, can cause your rate of migraines to double or triple. In order to provide the proper treatment, a spinal specialist will have to assess the cause of increased headaches.
The following symptoms will almost always accompany headaches as a result of spinal injury:
- Dizziness
- Tinnitus (constant ringing in the ears)
- Double or blurred vision
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Stiffness and pain in the neck
- Hearing loss
- Dull or throbbing pain in the head
- Pain that gets better or worse when you lie down
If your headaches include any of the above symptoms, it’s time to get in touch with your doctor and consider immediate treatment.
Treating Headaches Caused by Spine Injuries
After a proper diagnosis has been established, you can begin treatment. Your pain management doctors may recommend a conservative treatment at first, which includes plenty of rest and some prescription medications to take the edge off the pain. But you may require further treatments such as Botox treatment, an epidural blood patch, or spinal correction surgery to get rid of the headaches for good.
The best way to prepare for your diagnosis and treatment is to keep a list of all the symptoms you have been experiencing since your injury. It is important to even keep track of less severe symptoms, such as tiredness and lethargy. Your doctor may need to perform further tests to ensure that you are getting the best treatment possible.
Stop Your Headaches ASAP
CPRM helps patients manage a wide range of symptoms, injuries, and discomfort stemming from spinal pain. If you have experienced an increase in the frequency of your headaches combined with muscle tightness or pain, it is possible that you are dealing with an underlying spinal injury. Learn more about migraine treatment in Orange County and speak with our experts about your best treatment options today.
