Occipital Neuralgia Headaches Clients presenting with occipital neuralgia commonly complain of pain referring up the back of the head and around the side, sometimes reaching into the orbital region. These headaches usually result from holding an awkward, static head posture. Prolonged, non-neutral postures with the head tilted on the neck can cause mechanoreceptor excitability in surrounding muscles, ligaments, and joint capsules as the O-A condyles are crammed closed on one side. Examples might

Case study 107 - Occipital neuralgia Occipital neuralgia is a rare neurological condition that involves shooting, shocking, throbbing, burning, or aching pain and headache that generally starts at the base of the head and spreads along the scalp on one or both sides of the head. It involves the occipital nerves, which run from the area where the spinal column meets the neck, up to the scalp at the back of the head. Pain is typically felt in the: * Upper neck * Back of the head * Behind the eyes

Do you experience neck pain, headaches, jaw pain, your eyes ache, facial pain, maybe pain at the base your skull? Well, entrapment of the greater occipital nerve can produce any and all of these symptoms. Very commonly a cause for this is that the muscles it passes through which are the upper trapezius, and the semispinalis capitis become spasmed or shortened compressing the nerve. Of course we can do different releases to those muscles to gain relief, however, why are they shortened?? Well some