Migraine Symptom: Neck Pain (poll results)

There is an increasing awareness that neck pain is a major symptom of migraine. In fact, neck pain seems to be more common in migraine than nausea.

Our recent poll affirms this once again. You were asked, Do you feel that neck pain is a symptom of your migraine attacks?

85% said yes, with only 11% saying no.

This fits well with a study on neck pain and migraine that we talked about last year – 69% of those with episodic migraine had some disability from neck pain, and 92% of those with chronic migraine had some disability from neck pain.

Neck pain is more than just a pain in the neck – it’s actually disabling, on top of the disabling pain of migraine, and other common symptoms such as visual disturbances and nausea.

Although it was once believed that “tension headaches” (tension-type headaches) were caused by muscle tension, we now know that the causes are much more complex. However, there is a much rarer type of headache called a cervicogenic headache, which actually does come from pain in the neck or else a disorder in the neck, spine, and surrounding tissue. To give a diagnosis of cervicogenic headache, your doctor must find evidence of a disorder or lesion within the cervical spine or soft tissues of the neck, and this must directly cause your headache.

But for most of us, neck pain is another part of the migraine puzzle, a disabling piece that should not be ignored by patient or doctor.