Lisa Brackett, 59, from Lake Price, Florida, is aware of she’s in for hassle when her neck begins to harm. “It looks like a white-hot golf ball on the base of my cranium,” she says. “It’s a sickening and really distracting ache that may cease me in my tracks.”

For Brackett, that’s an indication a migraine assault is looming. “Neck ache is absolutely widespread in individuals who have migraine,” Elizabeth W. Loder, MD, chief of the headache division on the neurology division at Brigham and Girls’s Hospital in Massachusetts, tells SELF. One latest evaluation discovered that about 77% of individuals with this complicated neurological situation additionally skilled an achy neck earlier than or throughout an episode.

However there’s additionally one other kind of neck-triggered drawback, often called a cervicogenic headache, which is a special beast altogether. To accurately deal with your signs, it helps to determine precisely what’s occurring. “The problem is to attempt to distinguish if [someone has] migraine with neck ache that’s a part of their migraine assault, or whether or not they have neck ache for another motive,” says Dr. Loder. Listed here are some methods to inform the distinction and what to do about them.

inform in case your achy neck is one thing extra

Brackett’s signs are a part of her prodrome, or the “preheadache” section that happens a number of hours or days earlier than migraine’s official begin. Nikki S., 32, from Chicago, looks like her neck issues truly trigger her assaults, which is the case for some individuals. “Neck ache can incessantly set off migraine assaults for me,” she says. “I really feel tightness and tingling sensations in my neck and it spreads as much as my head. I typically really feel like my head is just too heavy for my neck to assist and I must lie down.”

Cervicogenic complications, however, are because of neck issues however aren’t thought of a part of migraine—and might have a special remedy strategy. With this situation, the bones, discs, nerves, and smooth tissues of your neck or the very prime of your backbone are often in charge. The ache “is primarily behind the pinnacle and neck,” says Shayna Y. Sanguinetti, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Hofstra Zucker College of Drugs. “This often develops in relation to…some form of cervical dysfunction or lesion, equivalent to damage, degenerative backbone illness, or muscle spasm.” Different attainable causes embody fracture, an infection, and even rheumatoid arthritis.

And whereas a neck ache could be a visitor star with both ailment, it may well really feel somewhat totally different relying on the situation. Dr. Loder notes that cervicogenic complications usually tend to happen all of a sudden and really feel lightning bolt-like. Whereas the ache might really feel prefer it’s coming straight from the again of your head or neck, “it may well radiate ahead,” Dr. Loder says, and should have an effect on the highest of your head. In contrast to with migraine, shifting your neck or including strain to the realm would possibly make it really feel worse, she says, and you may additionally expertise one-sided ache or issue shifting your neck.