Question
For the past several years, mostly during cold weather, I have episodes where I have had a shooting pain go from the bottom of my spine all the way to the top. It is pretty much crippling for about 30 seconds. On most occasions I get a bad headache for a hours. When I get these head aches they start on the right side of my head then it does not matter. If I lay on my back I feel pressure on my forehead. If I lay on the left side, pressure is on the right, etc.  Naproxen was prescribed for stress headaches - does not help. Well, all day today I have had that pulsating pain in my back and neck. It's not as SEVERE as it usually is, but it has lasted all day. Pulsating pain has also popped up here and there. Most of the day it was my right temple. Now it is behind my left ear.  Oh, my mother has spasmodic torticollis (cervical dystonia) most of my family has neck pain too. I have been having severe pain in my neck that keeps me from driving lately. I had car wreck two years ago and busted windshield with head. I am 30 now, but when I was ten I fell down a metal play ground slide on my back. I had to be rushed to ER because I could  not catch breath and passed  out. Those are the only things I can think of besides the fact that I weight 265 pounds> I am working on that. I have lost 15 in 2 months.
Can you please give me any advice. It would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hello, Crystal.

The common reaction to injuries is to tighten up. The car accident and fall you described would account for your spine and neck muscles tightening up.  That kind of tension typically causes headaches.  Please see the articles on headaches and on whiplash injuries at somatics.com/page4.htm, and also the one on recovering from injuries.

Drugs don't help much with this kind of condition because they impair your ability to function, but do nothing to teach you how to let go of the tight muscles.  Somatic training is a clinical process that teaches how to free tight muscles.  That's my recommendation.  See somatics.com.

The additional weight only compounds the problem.  Cold weather, by making you shiver, also causes muscles to tighten up; that's why there's a correlation with cold weather.

with regard,
Lawrence Gold