What causes severe headache?

Posted on Thu, 16 Oct 2014

Question: I had suffered a neck a neck injury on July 16th 2014 , As a result I have 2 cervical herniated discs c5-c6 central.left parasagittal vertabrel ostoephtyes with superimposed disk herniation indenting on the ventral thecal sac resulting in mild spinal canal stenosis . The neural foramina ia patent. And also at c6-c7 Left parasagittal disk herniation with superimposed vertabral osteophytes indenting on the ventral spinal cord resulting in moderate spinal canal stenosis. Disk materal encroaches on the left exiting c-7 nerve root resulting in mild proximal left neural foraminal narrowing. I have serious Headaches as a result on The imjury., I understand That the Pressure needs to be taken off the Nerve root for a the headaches to possibly stop. I just wanted a opinion on This

Is The more likely a surgury issue, or can The disks reabsorb over time and the headaches will stop when the nerve has the disk material off it

Answered by Dr. Shruti Rijhwani (44 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Follows.

Detailed Answer:
Dear Sir,

Thank you for posting your query on HCM.

Well looking into your problem I would like to tell you that I feel that the headache is unrelated to the your compression problem. C7 nerve root compression will give rise to numbness, tingling or pain in its distribution of this nerve root in hand which you dont complain.

Generally surgeries on spine should be avoided as far as possible . Clinical symptoms should be taken into account while taking this decision and from the history that you give and the report that I read in my opinion you should wait rather than undergo surgery .

But your treating doctor will be the best person to take this decision as he has examined you and clinically knows the symptoms better.

Take care.

Dr. Shruti

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Bhagyalaxmi Nalaparaju