Neuralgia of the head or scalp

A neuralgia of the head or scalp is often accompanied by an enormous amount of suffering. The slightest movement or touch of the head causes severe pain. Combing the hair, moving the face or even putting on a piece of clothing becomes pure torture.

The cause is irritated or damaged nerves. The backgrounds can be more or less severe and therefore more or less treatable. A strong cold stimulus or a headgear that fits too tightly are causes for painful nerve irritations that can be quickly remedied.

Proper diseases, which require much more complex treatment and are usually associated with a protracted course of disease, are special neuralgia such as trigeminal or occipital neuralgia and shingles. Trigeminal neuralgia occurs on the face and forehead, occipital neuralgia refers to nerve pain at the back of the head. Both diseases are often of unknown cause, since the nerve damage itself or the reason for it cannot be found.

The therapy approaches are versatile and range from conventional medicine to alternative medicine. For some patients acupuncture helps, for others the symptoms are improved by medication.Shingles usually occurs in a belt shape on the trunk of people who have had chickenpox once in their lives and in whom the virus responsible for the infection reappears. The virus settles in a nerve node after initial infection and remains there for life.

If the virus resides in a nerve node in the head, the scalp can also be affected by the rash and neuralgia that the virus characteristically causes. Shingles can only be treated symptomatically. Relief is provided mainly by drugs for epilepsy such as carbamazepine, because they reduce the excitability of the nerves, and strong painkillers.

These include opioids such as tramadol and oxycodone, which, however, have a certain potential for dependence and should therefore be taken with caution. Neuralgia-like pain in the back of the head is usually the result of occipital neuralgia. Occipital nerves are affected, which are responsible for transmitting pain signals from the skin of the back of the head to the brain.

In many patients, the shooting pain attacks are mainly triggered by turning the head. The cause of the damage to the nerve can be, for example, a fall on the back of the head or tension in the neck muscles. Often, however, no specific cause can be identified. Treatment essentially comprises pain medication and carbamazepine as well as physiotherapy and massages to ease possible neck tension. In rare cases where a herniated disc in the cervical spine is the cause, surgery may also be considered.