Many believe that to diagnose a Cervicogenic (originating from the neck) Headache, neck pain must be present. But, is a headache without neck pain really not related to the neck? Think about it this way: Just like some people have leg or arm pain due to their spine without actually feeling spinal pain, you can
Side-locked unilateral head pain is a key diagnostic criterion of Cervicogenic Headache (CGH). However, while this presentation characterises CGH, it is not confirmatory. There are medical conditions that manifest with unilateral side-locked headache. One of these conditions is Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) or Temporal Arteritis. For those who need to become more familiar with GCA…
Indeed, this is the elephant in the room! A key diagnostic criterion for CGH is side-locked unilateral head pain, i.e. head pain always occurs exclusively on the same side, never the other. This has been established by the medical model of headache, respectfully not fully au fait with musculoskeletal medicine. In my experience, whilst
It’s like the proverbial elephant in the room that no one is talking about. When diagnosing Cervicogenic Headache (CGH), the rulebook says pain must stick to one side – it is supposed to be always on the same side, never the other, a so-called ‘side-locked’ pain. But here is where things get puzzling. As a
Introduction ‘Cervicogenic’ refers to ‘neck-related’, and therefore, the cause of ‘Cervicogenic Headache’ lies in the neck; more specifically, research has shown that the cause will be found in the top three spinal segments or joints.1 Consequently, head pain is referred from musculoskeletal misbehaviour or disturbance of any structure supplied by the top three spinal nerves.
Introduction: This article summarises the medical model’s contemporary perspective of Cervicogenic Headache (CGH) and discusses some factors contributing to the reported low prevalence of CGH. Cervicogenic Headache, a nuanced subset within the headache spectrum, is surprisingly reported less frequently, ranging from 0.1–4.1 per cent depending on which CGH diagnostic criteria are used1-4 (at this
