We’re pleased to announce that Pain Physicians of Wisconsin is now Pro Spine Pain.
In the USA, migraines affect around 1 in every 6 Americans, some of which can be debilitating, affecting the quality of life. There are also cluster headaches, occipital neuralgia, and many more forms of head pain that can arise in our lives due to injury or medical conditions, making your day-to-day life difficult to undergo.
One minimally invasive medical procedure that can help temporarily alleviate such headaches and pain situated in the shoulders and neck is an occipital nerve block. This procedure uses a safe dose of anesthetic medication (often a corticosteroid) injected into your occipital nerve ( a group of nerves in the back of your head), reducing inflammation from headaches and conditions.
There are three types of occipital nerves:
At Pro Spine & Pain, we help provide you relief for your headaches by connecting you to a transformative treatment, whether that’s an occipital neuralgia nerve block or something else. With a top-tier team of board-licensed anesthesiologists and physicians specializing in pain management, they can quickly diagnose your contributor of pain through their collaborative consultation.
The full pain-relieving effects of the steroids can take several days to take effect.
The amount of time that an occipital nerve block reduces pain varies from person to person. For some, pain relief can last months.
An occipital nerve block is used to reduce chronic head pain. Some of the specific conditions it’s commonly used to treat include:
Migraines are a neurological condition that usually causes intense headaches on one side of the head. People who have migraines commonly also experience nausea, dizziness, and mood changes.
Occipital neuralgia is a headache disorder that usually causes shooting pain in the back of your head, one side of your neck, and behind your ears. Pain is caused by damage to the greater and lesser occipital nerves.
Also called osteoarthritis of the joints in your neck, spondylosis of the cervical facet joints is often caused by the age-related breakdown of your neck bones and discs.
Cluster headaches are a short but painful series of reoccurring headaches. People who experience them tend to get them seasonally.
Side effects of occipital nerve blocks may include infection, no improvement in symptoms, stronger headaches, allergic reactions, dizziness, numbness, bleeding at the injection site, light-headedness, and a small risk of nerve damage.
With an occipital nerve block migraine procedure, you can experience immediate results within just a few minutes. The effects of this procedure can last for several weeks up to months.
This is a minimally invasive procedure that has very few complications. To ensure they're kept to a minimum, we ask you not to eat any food or drink 6 hours beforehand.
You'll likely be able to walk following the procedure. However, if you drive, it's better for someone to drive you home afterward.