A back-and-forth jerk of the head such as occurs in an automobile accident leaves more than a sore neck. The whiplash movement injures your muscles, nerves and ligaments badly. The trauma doesn’t stop at the neck. One of the most annoying symzptoms is severe, constant headaches that begin at the back of your head and move forward to your forehead. A whiplash headache begin at the back of the head and move up to the forehead and occur more often than people realize.
Why Do Whiplash Headaches Occur?
Whiplash headaches begin when soft tissues in the neck are injured. When muscles and ligaments are strained or torn, nerves that run through them, especially the occipital nerves, get irritated or pinched. The nerves are the messengers that transmit the message from the neck to the back of the head.
How Do Whiplash Headaches Feel?
Unlike a whiplash headache, if you’ve got a tension headache or migraine. It doesn’t occur just to anyone. And it’s not easy to live with. Chances are if you don’t have a whiplash headache, you probably know someone who does. Some of these symptoms are: A whiplash headache starts at the rear of your head and then goes forward. Sharp pain at the back of your head is one symptom you may feel.Symptoms are neck stiffness or rigidity; dizziness; sensitivity to light and noise; and nausea.
How Long Do the Symptoms Last?
Some people will have their headaches resolve in a few weeks. For others, headaches will last for months and become chronic daily headaches. This latter group will contour the appearance of our lives. This is the median division of our frontal lobes. Headache is my punishment for not fulfilling the primordial role of guarding the gates of reason.
How Is Whiplash Diagnosed?
Diagnosing whiplash headaches is difficult. This is because no test can be given to say a person has whiplash headaches definitively. Instead, doctors look at a person’s symptoms and history to make the diagnosis.
No test will conclusively prove whiplash is present when whiplash diagnosis is warranted. Your doctor can make a diagnosis based on your history and your physical examination findings. Your neck’s range of motion, sense of touch, and muscle strength will be tested by the doctor. They might do X-rays and CT scans or MRIs to ensure there are no more severe injuries. Symptoms and patient history are used by the doctors to diagnose.
Why Do These Headaches Persist?
Inflammation of the nerves is the main reason that whiplash headaches are so hard to treat because they are a direct consequence of the condition. When occipital nerves are inflamed, they will keep sending messages of pain to the brain long after the initial injury has healed. The syndrome is a cycle that requires targeted medical treatment in the hopes of finding a way out.
What Really Works in Treating Whiplash Headaches?
The good news? People are able to manage their condition through a series of whiplash headache treatment options like time and good quality medical care. Firstly, doctors advise patients to rest with the help of either heat or ice therapy and anti-inflammatory medication. Patients who do not find responsiveness in pain relief by using medication require physical therapy to improve the strength and flexibility of neck muscles.
Acupuncture and chiropractic treatment along with massage is also a viable alternative for those patients of headache who are not able to heal their ailment. These professional treatments relax the pain in the muscles of the cervical spine along with relieving the pinched nerves from pressure.
What About More Advanced Homegrown Treatments?
More severe medical interventions can be given as a last resort. Most common treatment for the condition is with an occipital whiplash nerve damage block. Injection of anesthetic and anti-inflammatory medication into the affected nerves is a temporary one as a pain signal-blocking effect.
Recurrent whiplash nerve damage compression problems diagnosis can cause patients to undergo surgical decompression of the nerve. With mechanical decompression surgery doctors try to decompress nerves in such a manner that those patients who suffer from chronic post-whiplash headache can gain permanent relief.
Occipital neuralgia is a syndrome caused by irritation or injury to the nerves at the back of the head. Patients suffer electric shock-like pains in the back of the head and neck. That is because it is most likely whiplash that irritates and stretches to the nerves, then it is a “proven” cause.
Why You Should Treat Whiplash Immediately
You cannot ignore neck pain after a car accident because it can result in chronic pain, restricted movement, and frequent headaches. Individuals always think that the symptoms will get better on their own but actually, most of the complications can be avoided with immediate whiplash treatment. Do not wait any longer if you are experiencing frequent headaches.
What You Can Do to Avoid Whiplash Injuries
Accidents cannot be prevented, but there are some precautions by which the risk can be minimized. First is to keep the vehicle’s headrest in a position where the back of the head can rest.
Wear seatbelts correctly. Keep good posture while driving or working for a long duration of time. If you are a sports person, then you have to take good care of your neck and shoulders too, because these are the most critical areas that have to be taken care of. Neck muscles help in a manner that there is no undue harm to the neck while jerking backward and forward.
Conclusion
Not just a legitimate and painful condition that occurs as a result of the accident, but a syndrome that is most commonly referred to as whiplash headaches. If you have been hit or hit in the neck or head, then lingering pain should not be out of mind. There is a way of managing headaches if one is taken care of early enough that one does not end up with chronic headaches and other issues. One can be treated and get better by lessening pain through physical therapy, nerve blocks or specialty care.
