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This post is unique. Why? Because you'll not only learn everything there is to know about Occipital Neuralgia and understand why it is so perplexing for doctors to identify the true root of the problem; also, you get the ways for fastest pain relief and treatment at home. Plus, I have added my commentaries as a fellow headache'er. Maybe you'll like the style. Maybe not. But it won't leave you untouched and un-helped.
People describe Vestibular Migraine (VM) as:
Small moving lines or flashing spots, first noticed in the center or the line of sight, are for many Vestibular Migraine (VM) sufferers the initial sign informing them that they are about to experience a migraine.
These geometric intrusions in your sight can not be blinked away or made to stop by simply closing your eyes.
People who experience these auras will see moving flashing light images disturbing the darkness when they close their eyes. Eyes opened or closed, the sufferer will notice that the shapes stretch and move toward the periphery of sight before disappearing.
The amount of time a VM sufferer may experience a visual aura can vary from migraine to migraine. Even those who frequently experience a visual aura may experience a migraine without an accompanying aura.
It is also possible for a Vestibular Migraine sufferer to experience a visual aura that isn’t followed by a painful headache.
These visual auras may be accompanied by tingling in the hands, feet, and facial features on occasion for some Vestibular Migraine sufferers.
After the visual aura subsides, the migraine sufferer may experience a throbbing headache on one side of the head. This pain may be intense or more subtle. The amount of pain any individual migraine sufferer may differ with each experience of the headache.
Feelings of dizziness, disproportionate movement, motion sickness, or vertigo accompany the headache pain for those experiencing Vestibular Migraine.
The individual may also experience an increased sensitivity to light, sound, and smells. All of this may be accompanied by nausea and/or vomiting.
People who experience Vestibular Migraines (VM) can have any, or all, of the symptoms of migraine headaches accompanied by feelings of unsteadiness, dizziness, being off balance, or feeling like they are experiencing motion sickness.
Many people indicate that moving their head or eyes can lead to a sense of dizziness. Some sufferers feel like they are unable to walk in a straight line. Some people will feel like they have moved great distances when taking a small step. Others will experience the sensation of falling when they attempt to lift or move their head even the slightest amount.
People with VM may sometimes experience headaches without the dizziness or dizziness without the accompanying headache.
Although many people don't notice symptoms prior to their visual disturbance, some migraine sufferers will remember struggling with words or being unusually uncoordinated or clumsy prior to experiencing a visual aura or, the individual doesn’t experience an aura, the onset of a migraine.The amount of time that passes between the ending of a visual aura and the onset of the pounding headache may vary from person to person and from migraine to migraine.
If you look at the symptoms provided above with a level of confusion, you aren’t alone.
Many people who struggle with migraine headaches, and doctors who work with individuals suffering from headaches, find it difficult to clearly distinguish one type of headache from another.
Add to the similarity of different headache syndromes the fact that many migraine sufferers will have different experiences with their headaches from time to time, and you can easily understand how complex and confusing it can be to determine exactly what type of headache you are suffering with.
Many migraine sufferers will experience a visual aura from time to time, but few experience an aura with each migraine.
Many people who experience a visual aura will have a lag between the aura and the onset of the migraine. The amount of time that occurs between the ending of visual disturbances and the onset of a headache can vary from moments to hours.
Likewise, many people who suffer from migraine headaches will experience bouts of sensitivity to light, sound, and smells. However, an individual will often not experience these symptoms with each headache and will often experience these symptoms to a different level from one episode to another. Many migraine sufferers will experience a visual aura and/or bouts of dizziness or vertigo without an accompanying headache.
Clearly, this adds to the confusion surrounding diagnosis of migraines.
If you look at the symptoms provided above with a level of confusion, you aren’t alone.
Many people who struggle with migraine headaches, and doctors who work with individuals suffering from headaches, find it difficult to clearly distinguish one type of headache from another.
Add to the similarity of different headache syndromes the fact that many migraine sufferers will have different experiences with their headaches from time to time, and you can easily understand how complex and confusing it can be to determine exactly what type of headache you are suffering with.
Many migraine sufferers will experience a visual aura from time to time, but few experience an aura with each migraine.
Many people who experience a visual aura will have a lag between the aura and the onset of the migraine. The amount of time that occurs between the ending of visual disturbances and the onset of a headache can vary from moments to hours.
Likewise, many people who suffer from migraine headaches will experience bouts of sensitivity to light, sound, and smells. However, an individual will often not experience these symptoms with each headache and will often experience these symptoms to a different level from one episode to another. Many migraine sufferers will experience a visual aura and/or bouts of dizziness or vertigo without an accompanying headache.
Clearly, this adds to the confusion surrounding diagnosis of migraines.
Dizziness is one of the most common symptoms that lead individuals to seek medical care.
About 40% of individuals that experience migraine headaches have some accompanying vestibular syndrome at onetime or another.
For some people, these vestibular symptoms accompany their migraine episodes. For others, the experience of dizziness, vertigo, and/or motion sickness may be totally independent of their experience with migraines.
Vestibular symptoms that frequently correlate with migraine headaches include
Migraine headaches are often associated with recurrent benign vertigo in adults and benign paroxysmal vertigo of childhood (BPVC which is experienced as sudden episodes of dizziness that lasts a few seconds to a minute).
Some individuals suffering from migraine headaches present with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). They may experience a sudden mild to intense sensation of spinning accompanied by a loss of balance and nausea and/or vomiting lasting up to a minute.
Nystagmus (abnormal rhythmic eye movements) may also accompany these symptoms.
Many events and foods that trigger vestibular episodes are also known to act as triggers for migraine headaches.
Such triggers include hormone fluctuations, changes in barometric pressure, and foods that are smoked, fried, or fermented. Other foods associated strongly with instances of vestibular symptoms and migraines include chocolate, red wine, aged cheeses, onions, and foods prepared with MSG.
Vestibular Migraine (VM) is a migraine attack that occurs with dizziness, a sense of imbalance, or vertigo. Vestibular Migraines may also be referred to as Migrainous Vertigo, Migraine-Associated Vertigo, or Migraine-Related Vestibulopathy.
People who suffer with Vestibular Migraines (VM) may sometimes experience other symptoms without the headache.Even in this configuration the episode can be very debilitating.
“Vestibular” refers to the inner ear and Vestibular symptoms may vary greatly from person to person. Some people with VMmay experience a spinning sensation. Others may have a sensation of moving out of proportion to the environment. They may feel that they are lurching when taking a small step, or they feel that they are falling when moving their head slightly.
There are no blood tests or imaging tests that can provide a definitive diagnosis of VM.
Doctors have a limited understanding of what causes these migraines. It is generally understood that VM is caused by misfiring of nerve cells in the brain.
The vertigo symptoms associated with VM tent to strike suffers around the age of 40.
You may be suffering from VM if:
At least half of the times that you experience these symptoms you also experience:
Doctors aren’t sure exactly what causes Vestibular Migraine (VM) Headaches. Although there are several theories about what causes VM Headaches, the exact mechanism of what occurs is not completely understood. It is generally understood that VM Headaches are caused by misfiring of cells in the brain.
There is some belief that there are interactions between pain and balance pathways in the brain when a person suffers a VM attack.
It is also believed that there may be abnormalities in the inner ear of VM sufferers that cause the balance issues.
According to Dr. Jason D. Rosenberg at Johns Hopkins Headache Center, vertigo may be “another part of migraine hypersensitivity like pain and photophobia.”
Like most migraine headaches, people who suffer from VM often control their attacks by learning and avoiding their particular triggers.
Some common triggers include:
Approximately 25% of those who suffer with VM Headaches will experience temporary visual disturbances. These disturbances may appear as:
Those who suffer from visual disturbances will generally notice that they start in the center of their field of vision and will move outward toward the edges of the vision field before the full blown VM headache attack begins.
30 - 80 % of people who suffer with persistent VM experience vomiting, nausea, or motion sickness.
About 14 % of adult population of US has a migraine (2013) and Vestibular Migraine accounts for approximately 8% of migraines.
Up to 38% of people diagnosed with VM experience auditory symptoms. These include tinnitus, hearing loss, and ear pressure.
Dizziness is a common symptom of a variety of illnesses.
Indeed, approximately 15 % of the general population experiences dizziness each year. As such it is often difficult to distinguish VM from other issues.
Doctors may experience difficulty determining if a patient is dealing with VM or Meniere’s Disease.
VM may also be originally diagnosed as vertigo.
Symptoms of VM may be similar to symptoms of acoustic neuroma, vascular abnormalities, brain stem lesions, post traumatic headache or vertigo, MS, stroke, and some infections.
Doctors must also consider other headache diagnoses like tension-type headaches, cluster variant headaches, paroxysmale hemicranie, chronic daily headaches, and migraine headaches with or without aura.
Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials (VEMP) testing may be helpful in differentiating between migraine headaches and Meniere’s syndrome of BPPV.
VEMP testing applies a repetitive sound to an ear and measures the muscle activity that occurs in response to the stimulus. VEMP measures are commonly hyper responsive after an individual experiences a migraine.
The affected ear response measures as hyporesponsive with Meniere’s Syndrome. The affected ear latency response will be represented as prolonged with BPPV.
Here's a great resource to learn how VEMP test works.
Your doctor will use the following criteria to determine the diagnosis of Vestibular Migraine.
You must have a diagnosis of, or a history of:
You must have experienced at least five episodes of:
Vestibular symptoms of moderate or severe intensity lasting between 5 minutes and 72 hours
And
At least half of the episodes include at least one of the following 3 migraine features
There is no blood test or imaging test that will determine that a person is suffering from VM. However, your doctor will conduct a thorough evaluation to help establish a diagnosis.
You can expect a thorough medical history, a physical examination, and diagnostic tests to be taken to rule out other illnesses.
Blood tests may be ordered to rule out infections that can create symptoms similar to VM.
Your doctor may also order an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan or CT (Computed Tomography) scan to look at your brain,and you may be given hearing and balance tests to rule out issues with your ears.
MRI and CT scans may be ordered to rule out TIA (Transient Ischemic Attacks), or mini strokes.
Although symptoms resulting from a TIA are temporary, it is essential that your doctor rules out this diagnosis as TIA’s increase a person’s risk of suffering a stroke which could result in permanent damage to brain tissue.
Both CT scans and MRI’s can be run with or without a dye or contrast agent.
A Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials (VEMP) tests may be ordered to support differentiation between migraine headaches, Meniere’s Syndrome, and BPPV.
As with traditional migraine headaches, those who suffer with Vestibular Migraine headaches may expect two attack plans for dealing with their headaches.
Individuals who experience frequent VM can expect to try preventative medications to help them reduce the incidents of attacks.
Drugs used to treat acute VM episodes are generally the same as those used as preventative medications to treat traditional migraines.
Flunarizine, topiramate, beta blockers, and antidepressants are often used as preventative medications for VM.
Whether or not a person takes preventative medications to reduce the number of VM attacks, he/she can expect to be prescribed medications to help stop a VM when it occurs. This is referred to as abortive therapy, the goal being to stop the headache when it occurs.
Triptansare often prescribed as elements of abortive therapy for when individuals experience a VM attack.
Your doctor may also prescribe vestibular suppressants to ease dizziness and motion sensitivity.
Anti nausea drugs may also be prescribed to counter debilitating symptoms.
Because probably you, like myself, experience symptoms on the intersection of several conditions such as ON, CGH, Migraine, Tension headaches, and more.
Since we are dealing with the mix symptoms (research is not yet clear on how it all manifests), targeting one symptom in isolation is a painful (and costly) waste of time.
We need to address underlying processes on a more global scale that sometimes means getting results which are not immediate but sustainable (assuming you are not fainting right at this moment because of unbearable pain; call emergency now if that's the case).
The idea is: Let's deal with the pain and distress so we can have energy, motivation, and mental clarity for a more radical treatment.
‘The time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining.’
We're going to prepare ourselves (help the sun to come out) in order for the true healing process to even begin (fixing the roof).
Physical pain and emotional frustration (resulting from not understanding what's happening and how to deal with it) is what turns our lives into a miserable existence. Generally, we experience a lack of will to do anything until this continuous confusion goes away.
You can learn here why your emotional and mental states can literally generate physical pain.
We need to clear the fog, so to speak, in order to breath freely for a moment so we can gather energy and realize that there's a way out of all this.
Let's do it.
I cannot know if we have similar issues. But over the years of deep research and even deeper experimentation I can say that I understand what is under the hood of manifestations like headaches, tensions, chronic problems, and all the mental companions of those physical symptoms.
There's a reason why I've separated this section: to let you choose your way, your perspective, your comfort if you'd like.
I'm not a doctor. Not a scientist. Just a regular guy. No credentials. No medical education.
But instead of "borrowing" dry information from others, I am living through my physical and mental issues; I'm experimenting with different perspectives on health and on ways to heal myself; I've been failing countless times in my attempts - sometimes because things didn't work, but way more often because I was giving up on my own trajectory; I've been rising up again and again after being emotionally broken from my own weaknesses... for one reason only - to connect things together and understand how "I work" in the deepest sense possible. This journey had brought me to more profound realizations; but that's not the point here.
I needed to connect what I experience with definitions and labels of conventional medicine as well as so-called alternative and holistic approaches. I desired to connect physical domain with mental and emotional worlds.
In my heart, I felt the call to connect my experience with your struggles and perspectives, and hopefully create a bridge of knowledge, love, and hope.
And I've succeeded to a certain extent.
I've been living with symptoms, which may be familiar to you, for years -
Because of all this, especially blurry vision and physical instability, my anxiety (this mental fragility) and psychological overwhelm grew to the extreme heights.
I experience difficulty with communication (lost in processing), troubles following along with my own decisions, and burning desire to escape from this constant overwhelm. I know that I've just described several psychological conditions. That's not the point.
The general idea is that the brain is too overwhelmed to process the input from the outside because of constant noise covering and distracting the signal. Operating in this state of mental and physical confusion is enormously depleting.
If I would distill my experiences down to the core, it would be:
For several years I've been living with this weird stack of symptoms ranging from neuropathic pain and vestibular issues to psychological imbalances and continuous mental overwhelm.
With time I've learned how to get better. Simple steps over time was bringing this delicious relief from pain, mental stability, and increased desire to tackle this beautiful life.
And I've found a way out which turned out to be a way in - I've realized that all these "unhealthy" imbalances are the doors we can enter with discipline and knowledge. What we find on the other side depends only on the:
I haven't just imagined all that. I found through research and self-experimentation - which sometimes have led me to the dark places - that there's a connection between every aspect of my health imbalances. More importantly, I believe that the roots of my own health issues are no different from anybody living at this day and age.
This grand outplay of influences and effects of those influences becomes pretty clear if you sincerely look through the dirt of our rotten system as well as your own inner kingdom of well-behaved madness.
We simply don't usually see all that because we're taught not to cross accepted avenues for living and healing; it's simply uncomfortable and may feel awful.
Probably, my situation seems different from yours. And it is. Odds are that you won't find anyone with exactly the same experience. Why? Because we haven't lived our lives identically. We have our imbalances on every level and we have different level of awareness of them.
However, the "basis" for our life on this planet, as a part of this planet, is the same. We all are human beings. Thus, we share true roots no matter creed, ideology, race, or any other concept our perplexed minds invented (just to be caught in them later on).
"Why do I need to bother understanding something? I just want to be healed!"
Please understand. Everything in our body is deeply interconnected. There's nothing happening on its own without influencing, or being influenced, by the whole. Not a single cell lives in isolation.
Just like that, your balance issues and dizziness and vertigo are directly influenced by your beliefs about life, your daily habits, your environment and your food.
Even if your doctor does not agree, it doesn't mean he is correct, or not delusioned.
That's why it's important to look at our health, and life for that matter, as a dynamic living organization. When it's in balanced state, we call that a healthy individual. When something is out of balance, it drags something else with it, and the momentum just grows by itself if we do not introduce any changes to our lives.
You don't have to know all the nuts and bolts. You just have to clearly realize that this is really the case, to believe in it, to recognize it by yourself with certain practices. So you can stop worrying looking for the one-and-only treatment you will ever need but simply make steps, changes, towards better balance, better life as a human being.