The Practitioner Le praticien The occasional greater occipital nerve block Gordon Brock, MD, reater occipital nerve block is However, other mechanisms, including FCFP, FRRMS a simple technique used to neck instability, trauma, inflammation Centre de santé et de services both diagnose and treat the and compression by the occipital artery, sociaux du Témiscamingue, greater occipital nerve subtype of oc cip may be operative in individual patients.5 Témiscaming, Que G ital neuralgia (itself a basket term for Correspondence to: “neuralgic pain in the distribution of the INCIDENCE Gordon Brock;
[email protected] greater or lesser occipital nerve or of the third occipital nerve”).1 The technique No data are available on the incidence This article has been peer is simple and relatively complication of occipital nerve neuralgia in the pri reviewed. free. Both the greater and lesser occip mary care population.5 ital nerves may be blocked, but this arti cle will concern itself with block of the SYMPTOMS greater nerve (Fig. 1). Patients often describe an occipital ANATOMY AND headache of relatively recent onset, with PATHOPHYSIOLOGY hardtodescribe, but fairly severe, pain that originates in the upper neck and The greater occipital nerve (or nerve of spreads to the vertex. The disorder may Arnold) is a spinal nerve providing for be bilateral and seems to develop in sensation of the scalp. It arises from the most patients without an obvious pro medial branch of the dorsal ramus of the voking cause. The pain tends to be of a C2 nerve (along with the lesser occipital neuropathic quality, described as stab nerve) emerging from between the first bing or electricshock–like, with a dull and second cervical vertebrae.