Today I'm going to tell you about occipital neuralgia and what you can do to fix it. Occipital neuralgia is caused by compression or irritation of the occipital nerve.
The symptoms of occipital neuralgia are pain that’s aching, throbbing, or even electric like in nature that starts at the base of your skull, radiates around your head, into your forehead, and even behind the eye. It can also cause sensitivity of the entire scalp region. Occipital neuralgia is usually caused by compression of the C2 C3 nerve root or from tightness of the small neck muscles at the base of your skull, compressing the occipital nerves.
Treatment for this can be heat or ice therapy, applied for about 15 to 20 minutes at a time, and using whichever one feels more comfortable for you. You can also take NSAIDs to help reduce inflammation and help reduce pain, you can also do gentle self-massage to the small muscles at the base of your skull.
If these at home remedies aren’t helping your symptoms, I’d recommend seeing a doctor who may prescribe prescription medications and even give you a steroid injection and or a physical therapist who can prescribe an exercise program that's tailored to your needs. A health care provider type can also utilize manual therapy and exercise training.
To learn more about occipital neuralgia, please visit us at Spine-health.com and be sure to subscribe to our channel for more videos like this one. Thank you for watching!
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