Skip to content

The Best Occipital Neuralgia Sleeping Position

A Women Sleeping

Sleep is important. This is not just true for your mental health, but also your physical health. Not getting enough sleep can affect your body in several ways — your nerves, your spine, your tissues, recovery, and more.

It can lead to chronic stress or other illnesses. Therefore, it’s important to understand how to eliminate pain if you have occipital neuralgia when you sleep.

So in this post, let’s discuss the best way to sleep with occipital neuralgia. That way you can rest well and reduce pain and stress for good.

What Is Occipital Neuralgia?

Occipital neuralgia is a headache that occurs due to nerves around your neck and spine. Symptoms can include throbbing, piercing pain, feeling of electric shock, and more. The pain typically surfaces around your ears, neck, and back of the head. And your occipital nerves extend through the muscle to the side of your head. When these nerves are damaged, irritated, or inflamed, you experience pain. Occipital neuralgia is rare, but migraine headaches can often be confused for this disease. It’s important to get this diagnosed properly if you’re experiencing these symptoms. Otherwise, it could become chronic or worse over time.

How To Sleep With Occipital Neuralgia?

When you want to sleep with occipital neuralgia, it’s important to prioritize lower pressure on your nerves. This is what causes the pain and tingling. Therefore, the best way to sleep is facing upwards.

Sleeping On Your Back is the Best Position

Sleep on your back and select a pillow that gives you neck support. You should align that body and head at the same angle. Don’t bend your neck up when you sleep. Keep it straight.

If sleeping on your back is not an option, you can try sleeping on your side. However, you still need to provide your neck with the proper support, otherwise nerves can become pinched or inflamed.

Other Ways To Help Occipital Neuralgia

Sleeping position is important. However, lifestyle changes are important as well. Caffeine, for instance, can narrow your blood vessels, which creates more throbbing pain. Leave the coffee for now.

In addition, you should try to get plenty of water, fruits, and vegetables. These will give you the vitamins and minerals to keep your body comfortable and operating properly.

Visit A Pain Specialist

If you’re experiencing pain while sleeping, this is not something you should suffer through.

Visit pain doctors who can help you with holistic approaches to reducing your pain. Read this post here to understand what to expect during your appointment.

They may help you with regenerative medicine, physical therapy, stretching, massages, even procedures that can relieve your pain.

Stop Occipital Neuralgia Pain For Good

When you visit the experts in pain management in Chicago at Gateway Spine & Pain Physicians, you can finally stop hurting at night.

Your migraines, neck throbbing, and other pain is treatable. In some cases, it’s even curable. So understand your options when you reach out today. Your pain-free life and restful sleep is only a few steps away.