Cervicogenic headache is a type of secondary headache that affects 0.17-4% of the general population and is defined by a primary lesion in the cervical spine with a painful syndrome in the head and/or facial area. It is characterized by unilateral pain on the side of the primary lesion in the neck, with variable accompanying symptoms that may pose a differential diagnostic challenge compared to other types of headaches. The most widely accepted mechanism of this headache's onset is the propagation of pain from the neck to the structures of the head, sometimes even to the face, due to the convergence of afferent neurons originating from the C1-C3 spinal nerves and nociceptive fibers of the trigeminal nerve in the trigeminocervical complex. Since most of the clinical characteristics of this headache are nonspecific, in the absence of a clear chronological connection to a lesion in the cervical spine, imaging or targeted nerve blockade is required to establish a diagnosis. The response to pharmacotherapy is often modest, and therapeutic methods include physical therapy, periodic injections of analgesics and/or corticosteroids into the joints of the cervical vertebrae or their associated nerves, as well as neurosurgical methods such as radiofrequency ablation and nerve decompression.

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