Constant and severe occipital head pain. Advice

Hello.

So, I've had occipital head/neck pain for the last 5-6 days. At first it was only in the morning and lasted a while during the day, then after a few days it's become constant. I have a little bit of upper cervical pain, but it's mostly in the occipital region. Since april 2020 I've had a headache, but this has mostly been one sided sharp temporal pain or a more general pounding with 'heavy' head headache.

I've tried sleeping in different positions. I also have a special pillow that shapes itself with the neck which is supposed to be ergonomic.

I went to a physical therapist who pushed on certain areas which didn't really make the pain much worse. I felt he was looking for me to confirm tender points and got caught up in a desire to confirm his expectations also because I want him to figure out something obviously. I don't feel like the pain is made worse by pressing on the areas. I do have a few tender spots in the occipital region, but I can't say that it's the same pain being made worse. I don't have any tenderpoints elsewhere in the neck, it's mostly lateral occipital region, just behind the ear and a little below that.

They suggested that I get injections with Diazepam.

Otherwise they gave me antiinflammatories in a lower dosage than what I'm already using (already use Indomethacin 150 mg per day for headache, he recommended Ibuprofen 400 mg 3 times per day) and said that it should pass on it's own in a week or so. If it didn't I could book another appointment for them to review the situation again, possibly do injections. So basically I have to pay double to get something done, so I was a little upset by that.

They didn't send me to get an MRI even though I asked for it, because they didn't think it would find anything. I have sort of been told that it's recommended to get done for a general evaluation of chronic headache as well, so I figured now that I also have neck/back of head pain, it seemed like a reasonable choice. The pain is severe.

I have gotten a referral to do nerve blocks, but it says that I have mixed tension and migraine headache, so I haven't sent the referral yet, because I don't agree with me having tension headache, since my headache is so severe in intensity and also present in the morning and accompanied by nausea and dizziness, amongst other things. I would like to get a multicranial nerve block done, especially GON, LON and ATN block, perhaps this will also help with the occipital pain?

A GP that I like suggested that I book an appointment with a private neurologist at their facility, but I'm scared of them just saying that I have tension headache and not doing anything or recommending psychomotoric therapy and psychologist sessions and it not helping me. My pain is severe and isn't affected by my mental state in any way noticable to me. I therefore don't have any hope of it getting better with mental health work. I also haven't noticed massages helping at all. The only medication used for tension headache is Amitriptyline and if that doesn't work, then I'm basically out of options as far as the tension headache label which might be hard to get out of/re-evalued if it's spread out a lot between doctors and hospitals

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar constant occipital pain, and if so what did you get done for it?

Thanks for any advice or support.

I live by myself in an area where corona is particularly common now, so I'm a little scared of moving about and am struggling to cope a little, especially since my somatic health has gotten so much worse.

0 likes, 1 reply