Cameron’s Recent Conference – Orthopedic and Neurological Syndromes of the Cervical Spine and TMJ

Did You know:

• There is a direct connection with a muscle in the upper neck (occiput-C1 level) with the spinal dura (covering of your spinal cord and brain). The connection is called the myodural bridge. It is proposed that spasm of the suboccipital muscle can cause traction on the extremely sensitive dura resulting in neck pain and headache (often felt at the back of the head and forehead)

• Migraine is not necessarily a headache! Facial Migraine can affect the lower part of the head and face. Often felt in the maxilla (cheek) and eye regions (sometimes throbbing).  Other symptoms often associated are nasal congestion, light sensitivity (photophobia), nausea, feeling of being unwell.  Because of these symptoms, facial migraine can often be mistaken as chronic sinusitis

• Abdominal Migraine: In children migraine often presents with little or no headache, pale appearance, listless, sleepy, nausea, irritability and abdominal discomfort. Some attacks also involve vomiting. This is very difficult to diagnose.  What to look for:  a mild frontal headache that begins on the way home from school, often after rushing about, or playing sport on a bright sunny day.  Child prefers to lie down in a dark room rather than continue to play, eat or do homework. The child may recover after 2-3 hours of sleep.  Migraine episodes are more frequent in children an may last for just 15-20 minutes.  Some children grow out of these attacks whilst others go on to develop classic migraine in teenage-adult years.

• Migraine coming from the neck. One should be suspicious of a neck problem if the migraine is always localised on the same side, there is neck pain greatest on the migraine side, attacks began after neck trauma (e.g., whiplash), tender/stiff upper neck muscles/joints, headache is aggravated or relieved by putting pressure over the sore joints/muscles.  A trial of upper neck spinal manipulation gives relief