Are “cervicogenic” headaches due to myofascial pain and cervical spine dysfunction?
The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate whether the pain of cervicogenic headache could be due to referred symptoms from myofascial trigger points. The presence or absence of cervical spine dysfunction was also of interest. Eleven patients with cervicogenic headaches were systematically examined for myofascial trigger points and cervical spine dysfunction. All patients had at least three myofascial trigger points on the symptomatic side. In eight of these patients, trigger point palpation clearly reproduced their headache. There were 70 myofascial trigger points (35 “very tender”, 35 “tender”) and 17 non-myofascial tender points on the symptomatic side, compared to 22 myofascial trigger points (one “very tender”, 21 “tender”) and 19 non-myofascial tender points on the asymptomatic side. These differences were statistically significant [chi-square (2df) = 22.04, p less than 0.0001]. All patients had some evidence of cervical dysfunction. Ten patients (91%) had specific segment
