Migraines are severe, recurrent headaches with a pounding, throbbing quality. These headaches may even cause nausea and vomiting. Migraines often occur when blood vessels in the brain dilate, or when neuronal or vascular inflammation take place. This is why most abortive migraine medications—those that stop the root causes of the migraine—are either blood vessel constrictors, like ergots and triptans; or anti-inflammatory medications, such as Aspirin or Ibuprofen. In the more rare, serious cases, a brain tumor or brain bleeding may cause headaches; however, only a mere 1% of headaches have these malignant causes.
Migraine Diagnosis & Treatment
Many headaches are secondary manifestations of other painful conditions of the head and neck. For instance, cervical dystonia or neck muscle pain could cause migraines. Even angina pectoris, a pain located in the chest, could do so. These diseases can be easily misdiagnosed as a migraine, which means treating these secondary headaches as if they were primary migraines usually fails. It could even be potentially dangerous.
Many headaches can be satisfactorily relieved with preventative and abortive medications. In the cases where these medications are not sufficient—such as with acute severe migraines—minimally-invasive, office-based nerve blocks may offer rapid and sustained pain relief. Other non-surgical procedures we may consider to treat this type of pain include:
- Supraorbital nerve blocks
- Occipital nerve blocks
- Infusion treatments
- Botox for prevention
At Cypress Spinal Intervention, our pain specialist is fellowship trained in Headache & Facial Pain. We offer same-day appointments and same-day treatments, so you don’t have to wait for pain relief. Visit our Cary office today!