Does anyone else suffer with OA in neck which causes headaches daily?

Hi @Libby20 firstly let me welcome you to the forum I hope you find the information and support you are after from our wonderful community.

I can see from your post that you have are having issues with pain in your back, neck and shoulders and wondering if this could be causing severe neck pain.

The site is full of information and I wanted to signpost you to some information that could help, particularly neck pain, which makes the link to headaches and help with exercises for managing neck pain.

Please feel free to search the forum for others with similar experiences, and I am sure that some of our community will be able to help offer some useful suggestions.

Take care and I hope you get some relief and answers soon.

Thanks

Joe

My neck problems include OA as well as Degenerative Facet Joint Disease and a detached disc. I do not do any of the exercises mentioned above as I have been told not to; the head tilt results in the sound and feeling of crunching a bag of crisps; doing the head turn I can feel and hear the vertebrae grating against each other; and the chin to chest causes pain at the base of my neck. I get the headaches that you mention but, thankfully, not every day and when I do a couple of paracetamol help (albeit on top of Morphine!). I wear a cervical collar when my neck is not otherwise supported for more than about 15 minutes, i.e. when not sat in my recliner or on my high back wheelchair or mobility scooter. I would suggest you ask an OT if a cervical collar would be suitable to help you out, the softer ones are either foam or filled with like polystyrene beads and provide gentle support rather than the hard neck brace which is a different bit of kit.

Hi @Libby20

after years of arthritis I actually have a fused neck that doesn’t move at all. I had years of crunchy joints and severe pain. I also got referred pain up into my neck causing headaches. Nowadays what causes me to get the headaches is tense muscles in my shoulders and neck (even though it doesn’t move) and this radiates up to give me awful headaches. I have learned to notice when I am getting tense and relax and hubby massages my shoulders for me. It is awful, I hope you find something that works for you

gentle hugs

Grace111

I have arthritis in my neck and the past 8 weeks I’ve had increased neck pain and headaches. I have therefore been seeing an osteopath and the headaches have gone and although my neck is sore, it’s much better than it was. I find looking at my iPad for more than an hour increases the pain. Do you use a iPad a lot? I barely use mine now!

Hi libby20. I unfortunately also suffer awful headaches daily due to osteoarthritis. I have a heated neck collar which I purchased from Amazon which helps. I also have been prescribed amytriptyline tablets to take at night to help with the headaches there helping. I saw spinal surgeon last week as I have rheumatoid arthritis, and he said it was clear from mri scan and X-ray that I have arthritis in my neck, but there was basically nothing that can be done that there is no surgery that will help. He said until I develop any sort of paralysis, due to the damage in my neck then no surgery will be available. He had referred me for pain injections, I am just hoping they work. Maybe you could ask for them for yourself.

Hi the mat sounds really effective for what I'm looking to decrease pain and muscle aches. I have been to a chiropractitioner and had an xray and a 3D digital one showing arthritis in my neck, lumbar and sacral (lower back) plus exercises to do. Now in many of my joints including hands and hips. I take turmeric, calcuim and vit. D. I have a mini massager that I use as it has heat mode as well. Hope anything here can support members or guests.

Thanks for the heads up about the Shakti mat, I have ordered one from Amazon which was half the price of the original. It has loads of good write ups so look forward to trying it tomorrow and have my fingers crossed (theoretically anyway), don't know how I will get off the floor afterwards though 😊

The mat arrived the day before yesterday and I have used it once for about 20 minutes. My back got used to the spikes quite quickly but my neck took about 15 minutes, I managed to relax into it but it is too early to say whether it has helped a lot as I gave it a miss yesterday. The worst thing was trying to get off the floor! I have trouble getting up and down anyway, because I was trying to roll onto my side to then squirm my way over to my chair to drag myself up the spikes dug into places that had not previously experienced them! Ouch!! I will try it again today but have decided to put it on my recliner to negate the floor issue.