Occipital Neuralgia in Layman’s Terms

Can someone please explain to me occipital neuralgia in layman's terms! Well, watch this video to learn more. So hey, can you do me a favor and subscribe to my YouTube channel? And click on that bell so you're notified of all my content as it comes out. We put content out on holistic health and wellness with physical therapy and pilates emphasis.

At my neurologist appointment the other day, I was told I have occipital neuralgia but I really didn't understand the explanation of it. Watch this video to learn more about your diagnosis of occipital neuralgia.

My name is Stephen Dunn and I'm a Holistic Physical Therapist and I've helped hundreds and hundreds of clients over the last two decades of my career and I look forward to helping you as well.

What is Occipital Neuralgia?

So what is occipital neuralgia? All right, let's talk about it. Basically, occipital neuralgia is a fancy term for inflammation of the occipital nerve. Now the occipital nerve is a nerve that comes out of the base of the neck, right back here. It's a little nerve that comes out.

So think about like the sciatic nerve, that's a nerve most people have heard of and are familiar with. The sciatic nerve runs down the back of your buttocks and leg and a lot of people have heard of that or experienced that. Well the occipital nerve comes out right at the back of the base of your neck, right where your head and your cervical spine come together, your skull and neck come together. 

Now imagine there's a pinch on it and the way I like to describe it is that you have a hose. That hose has your signal and that hose is your nerve and it's generating the signal down that nerve. That signal is starting at the brain and it's generating down through the nerve.

Well, if your hose that you're using to water your lawn with has someone standing on it or the car's drone up and parked its tire on it, then the water might still come out a little bit but it's very much pinched and very much in a reduced capacity.

Well, imagine the nerve that's coming out of the back of your neck there, the occipital nerve is being pinched, and as it is being pinched...boom... you get these symptoms that come up and over, typically to the eyes, typically on one side more than both sides. It's pretty uncomfortable and most people don't like it very much. So that is a simple explanation of it.

There’s pressure on the nerve and the goal of treatment is to get that pressure off that nerve.

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Thanks for watching guys and I look forward to helping you in the future. Look out for my other occipital neuralgia videos, I've got many of them out there.

I hope that you can get some relief from this condition.