Severe headache? Get relief today.

Why people come here instead of the emergency room

An emergency department is the right place for a headache that might be a bleed, an infection or a stroke. It is a poor place for a headache you already know the name of. You wait among higher-acuity patients, you are usually treated by a clinician who does not manage headache disorders day to day, and the visit often ends with a shot and a referral rather than a plan.

This clinic exists for the second situation. We treat the attack in front of us, and we treat it with the same tools a headache specialist would reach for — intravenous therapy, targeted nerve blocks, and oxygen for cluster attacks. If your presentation suggests something dangerous, we will tell you plainly and send you to an emergency department.

Know which headache you have

Headaches are not one condition, and the treatment that aborts one does very little for another. Identifying the pattern is most of the work.

• Migraine — throbbing, often one-sided, with nausea and sensitivity to light or sound. Usually worsened by movement.
• Cluster headache — severe, strictly one-sided pain around or behind the eye, with a watering eye, drooping lid or blocked nostril on the same side. Attacks come in bouts.
• Tension-type headache — a pressing band on both sides, mild to moderate, without nausea.
• Occipital neuralgia — sharp, electric pain running from the base of the skull up the back of the head.
• Cervicogenic headache — pain that starts in the neck and is referred upward, often triggered by neck position.
• We also treat head and neck cancer pain and persistent pain after dental treatment, which are not headaches but share the same nerves.

What we can do in a single visit

• IV migraine therapy — fluids with anti-nausea medication, magnesium and an anti-inflammatory, for an attack that has not broken with oral treatment.
• Occipital nerve block — local anesthetic at the base of the skull, for occipital neuralgia and cervicogenic headache.
• Sphenopalatine ganglion block — anesthetic delivered through the nose to a nerve bundle behind it. Office-based, no sedation.
• Oxygen therapy — high-flow oxygen, a first-line abortive for cluster headache.