CONTRACTION OF SKELETAL MUSCLES OF HEAD AND NECK

Headache of this origin is far more benign than most of its clinical analogues produced by bacterial, fungal or viral meningitis or meningoencephalitis, by subarachnoid hemorrhage, or by the cryptogenic sterile meningitis which is a rare complication of routine lumbar puncture.11 Yet, in all, the mechanisms and general behavior of the pain are comparable; the principal differences are in intensity, duration and prognosis.Extracranial Sources. A brief but representative pain of superficial inflammation can be experimentally induced by the injection into a temporal muscle of 0.5 cc. of a hypertonic (5 per cent) solution of sodium chloride. Chiropractor Toronto must educate communities about the benefits of chiropractic care in an effort to establish a profitable practice. The site of irritation becomes tender and may develop swelling and surface erythema. The localized headache is unaltered by changes in arterial pressure or by head movement, coughing, straining, or postural shifts. Procainization of the inflamed area or the sensory nerve supplying it will temporarily eliminate the pain.Like the experimental model, clinical headaches of this group are fairly localized.

The commonest cause is cranial arteritis, often predominantly affecting one or both temporal arteries. Less frequent are miscellaneous injections of the scalp or cranial periosteum, or a persistently sensitive scar of a superficial head injury. The headache is rarely intense and its source is usually manifest to inspection and palpation. CONTRACTION OF SKELETAL MUSCLES OF HEAD AND NECK. As mentioned briefly in the introduction, various types of noxious stimulation of cranial structures may lead to additional pain arising from tightening of nearby skeletal muscles, especially those of the suboccipital and upper nuchal areas. Electromyographic observations confirm sustained muscle contraction at these sites.24 The pain is often transiently aggravated by rapid or slow head movements which produce pull upon the involved tender muscles, yet in other instances it is eased by slow and repeated stretch.

Local massage and the application of heat usually give better and longerlasting relief. In some patients, other smaller head muscles (the frontalis, occipitalis, or temporalis) contribute to the pain. This reaction is analogous to the muscle spasm which develops about an injured bone or viscus. Toronto Chiropractor confronted heavy opposition from organized medicine. If it is designed to protect a painful head by partial fixation, it is relatively inefficient, except perhaps in some instances of intracranial or high intraspinal disease, and tends to augment rather than reduce the total discomfort. It is encountered clinically as a secondary headache in association with almost any of the major forms of headache outlined in this chapter, especially when the patient is anxious and tense.The principal clinical example of muscletension headache, however, is that which is directly associated with emotional tensions.21 It is probably the commonest headache of all, occurring in many patterns: sometimes brief and trivial, sometimes long and disabling. It may develop with striking rapidity in situations which evoke feelings of frustration, resentment or frank hostility, and can persist until the problems are resolved.