Occipital Neuralgia vs. Migraine Headache

Today on Facebook I got a great question that I think is important….  “Are ON flares also called migraines?” In fact the word “migraine” has a broad meaning, including many different kinds of severe headaches with different causes.  Some migraines are caused by issues in or near the brain, such as dilated blood vessels or…

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nerve block for migraines

Why did the nerve block from my neurologist make things worse?

A frequent question I get asked involves nerve injections that make things worse rather than better.  Many times nerves blocks work just as they are supposed to but when they don’t, patients are often left trying to figure out why???   So what happens when nerve blocks make the pain worse? Remember that nerve blocks…

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Migraine Surgery Word Map

Migraine Recurrence and Revision

While we wish it never happened, an infrequent occurrence following migraine surgery is the return of headache pain.  Just like any surgical procedure, migraine operations do have their rare failures, and in the case of migraine surgery, the failure rate is, fortunately, less than 10%.  If you have a presence on social media, you may…

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Outpatient surgery for headache and migraine

It seems there is often much misunderstanding surrounding the terminology pertaining to headaches.  While “migraine headache” is indeed a specific diagnosis, there are many subtypes of migraines with terminology that can get confusing.  Additionally,  many headache sufferers have not yet seen a neurologist to get a migraine diagnosis, and others have diagnoses such as “chronic…

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HEAT and your headaches

Weather can be a trigger for migraines as well as several other headache syndromes.  I’m finding that this time of year in Southern California, and even in Colorado where my Denver office is located, can be the worst time of year for those yearning for headache relief.  Los Angeles recorded record-breaking temperatures of 121 degrees…

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What’s in a name?

The term “migraine surgery” was coined as a simplified way for the public to understand that there is a surgical procedure to improve migraine headache symptoms.  In fact, the more appropriate name for this procedure is “nerve decompression surgery for the relief of headache and migraine symptoms.”  That’s a bit too wordy, but unfortunately, the…

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