The headache that begins at the back of the skull
You notice it first as an ache low down, where your skull meets your neck. It spreads upward, sometimes settling behind one eye or across one temple. It might build slowly through a morning at your desk, or appear after you've spent a while looking up at a shelf or twisting to reverse the car.
Because it can sit behind the eye or across the forehead, this kind of headache is often mistaken for a migraine or a tension headache. People treat it as one and wonder why the usual remedies don't help much.
Why a stiff neck can produce a headache
The top three joints in your neck sit unusually close to the nerve pathways that also carry signals from your scalp and face. Your brain doesn't always separate the two clearly, so a problem in the neck can be felt as pain higher up.
A few things commonly set this off: an old whiplash injury that never fully settled, hours spent with your head held forward at a screen, or a night spent sleeping at an odd angle. None of these need to be dramatic. Small, repeated strain on those upper joints is usually enough.
Telling it apart from other headaches
A few clues point towards the neck as the source. The pain tends to sit on one side rather than both. It often starts at the base of the skull rather than across the forehead. And it usually changes when you move your neck — worse when you hold a certain position, easier when your neck is supported and at rest.
Migraines usually bring nausea, sensitivity to light, or visual disturbance alongside the pain. Tension headaches tend to feel like a band pressing round the whole head. A headache coming from the neck behaves differently: it follows your posture and movement far more closely than it follows the time of day or what you've eaten.
What an osteopath checks for
An osteopath will look at the joints and muscles in your neck and upper back, and often at your posture and daily habits too. Part of the assessment involves gently moving your neck to see whether that reproduces the familiar headache — a useful way of confirming where the problem actually sits.
Treatment usually involves hands-on work to ease stiffness in the upper neck and tightness in the surrounding muscles, along with practical advice on the positions and habits that seem to be feeding it. All the osteopaths at Notts Osteopathy are registered with the General Osteopathic Council.
When to see a doctor instead
Most headaches linked to the neck respond well to the right treatment over time. But some symptoms need a doctor rather than an osteopath: a sudden, severe headache unlike any before, one that arrives with fever, vision changes or slurred speech, one that follows a head injury, or one that keeps getting worse over several days rather than settling.
If you're not sure which category your headache falls into, your GP is the right first call.
What to do next
If your headaches sit at the base of your skull and shift with how you hold or move your neck, it's worth having your neck properly assessed rather than treating the pain in isolation. Call Notts Osteopathy on 0747 124 8330 or visit 437 Westdale Lane, Mapperley, to arrange an appointment.
