My 24 year-old daughter who lives about 600 miles from me has had severe migraines for the last four months. Like nearly every day. She's seen a doctor who prescribed all kinds of meds, she made some dietary changes, and other stuff but really no relief. Had a CT scan of her head, nothing there. So her doctor refers her to a chiropractor. Immediate relief that lasts for a week or so. Daughter decides to go on a weekly basis and chiro decides she better have some xrays to see if she's got something going on with her neck/spine.
Xrays today, radiologist calls her within a hour and says she has a C2 fracture or what's referred to as a hangman's fracture and is usually a result of an auto accident, a football injury or diving in shallow water. She has had NOTHING like this happen to her EVER.
Tomorrow she's having a CT scan of her neck and spine. I'm freaking out because everything I read about this is frightening. She sent me a copy of the report but it's just words to me as I am clueless about this sort of thing and need to know if I should be making plans to go there or just wait. I don't know what to do.
Help. . . .
[This message edited by meaniemouse at 8:55 PM, April 16th (Wednesday)]
If chiropractic care helped her headaches they are probably muscle tension headaches instead of vascular headaches like migraines.
This also is fairly common, and may be an old injury that happened years ago, and the fracture is now showing up but is causing some sort of impingment on her cord, and thus the headaches. As long as she isn't having issues with numbness in fingers or hands, I would urge you to take a deep breath and just wait.
Also if your daughter is well endowed it this can pull and put lots of pressure on the C-spine. Very common in women with large chests. Tell her to go buy some new sturdy bras, and see if that helps. I have 3 patients that I am currently working with on wellness plans that all had upper back/neck pain and headaches. They have all seen great improvement with better bras. One is wearing sports bras to work and no longer has any of the pain that she was actually going to see a surgeon for.
She may have seen improvement through the chiro because he was temporarily getting things back into place, and then they come back as her muscles tend to pull things out of whack again. That is why it is essential to not just go for the treatments, but also do the exercises they give her to help strengthen the muscles that are out of wack.
Good luck.
I just talked to her--she had her scan this morning but apparently the neurologist can't look at it for a day or two. This is the same place she had the xrays yesterday and they were concerned enough to call her back within an hour and get her in for the scan first thing this morning.
She is off work again today with a severe headache; she is frustrated all she wants is for the pain to go away, or at least be manageable. She has missed a lot of work, seen a lot of doctors and taken different meds that either didn't work or had side effects she couldn't tolerate.
I hate being so far away; I know she's an adult and is in charge of her own health care, she has great insurance so that's not a problem, but I feel like she needs an advocate in navigating the health care system. She was never sick as a child, none of my kids were, so she just doesn't have any experience with it.
I will pass along your suggestions tushnurse and purple jacket. Her boyfriend's father is a radiologist in another city and has looked at her old scans and the xrays and is going to look at her most recent one this morning and maybe shed some more light on it.
Again, thanks so much for your help. There's nothing worse for a mom than being so far away and not being able to do anything to help.
Thanks to everyone who responded. I appreciate you taking time to help.
Hope she finds some relief.
For the headaches, there's an easy old folk-remedy:
Face up, roll up a flexible gel ice pack under neck so the neck "curves" (like a cervical pillow). Put heat (hot water bottle etc.) on thighs. 20-30 minutes...she can even go to sleep with it, it can be that comforting...
Has she started a new job or activity (or something new) in the last 4 months? Whatever it is, if she's been doing a lot of this: . .
(Flexion) Say, working on taxes, excess studying, etc... it places a lot of pressure on the neck muscles.
She can counteract much of that by just lying across her bed with her head hanging off. (Extension) . .
(not even THAT far, really. Her shoulders can stay on the bed :)
It might be diff to do at first...baby steps. More and more time every day - get to 5 minutes.
Poor baby. I hope it's just something like that (posture/biomechanics), & not some weird internal thing. I doubt it is - given she's always been as healthy as a horse. (((meanie & DD)))
Her job involves sitting at the computer ALL the time.
And I just got an email saying she's got an appointment with a headache specialist on May 8th.
Whew! What a difference SI and 24 hours makes!
Everyone--thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
I would encourage her to start some Pilates to focus on strengthening her core this CNAake a big difference of her headaches are a result of neck strain. And don't forget new supportive bras help too.
[This message edited by tushnurse at 8:06 PM, April 17th (Thursday)]
