Will the Real Sinus Headache Please Stand Up?
Growing up I remember watching the popular game show, What’s My Line? The program began by announcing that one of the four panelists had an interesting career, such as an astronaut. The other three panelists were “posers” (impostors). The contestant’s job was to pepper the bunch with questions in order to determine which one of the panelists was legit.
When the allotted time was up and the contestant had made their best guess, the show’s host would then bellow the now infamous line: “Would the real ________ please stand up?”
I wish we could play this same game when diagnosing head pain. There are so many possible causes of headache. And with only so much “real estate” in the region of the head, pain has limited locations to travel to. The forehead, the bridge of the nose, and behind the eyes seems to be a popular destination. Pain which lands itself in these regions is usually labeled sinus headache—though more times than not, I find—in error.
Many patients come to me to be treated for their neck pain. When I ask if they experience headaches as well, they say, “Yes, I do, but they’re sinus headaches.” They’ve arrived at this self-diagnosis because their pain typically subsides after taking sinus medication.
Imagine their surprise when I begin working on their upper necks and their “sinus headache” begins to fade! After subsequent treatments, their “sinuses” no longer bother them—despite existing seasonal or environmental allergens. The reason is because they’ve been misdiagnosed, either by themselves or by someone who didn’t know to look elsewhere for the culprit.
In my book, Overcoming Headaches and Migraines, I discuss the way to correctly diagnose a whole host of head pain initiators. True sinus headaches are characteristically accompanied by nasal drainage and/or congestion, and sinus infections may present with a low fever. So, if your ENT doctor (Otolaryngologist) has given you a clean bill of sinus health, try a manual physical therapy approach—your neck dysfunction may be doing a good job of “posing” as a sinus headache.