Brief Answer:
Carotid pressure as intervention for cephalgia

Detailed Answer:
Good evening and thank you for your question regarding why apparent carotid compression pressure seems to relieve pain that your son has of his headaches.

First of all, you are absolutely correct in recommending to your son that he should not compress his neck under any circumstance although if he is dealing with cluster headaches then, I understand how the desperation from the pain will drive him to do anything to stop the pain no matter how risky.

Now, for a bit of GOOD news/BAD news.

The good news--- he's NOT likely compressing the carotid artery since it is much more hidden and inaccessible to self compression than you think. He's more likely compressing the Internal Jugular vein.

The bad news--- it virtually doesn't matter whether he's obstructing the carotid or Internal Jugular since potential consequences in both cases can be VERY VERY damaging and even fatal under the right circumstances. Therefore, back to your suggestion in the first place which is just don't do it.....

Now, why does vascular compression in the neck seems to help his headache?

Actually, any significant compression of the carotid artery would not be as likely to relieve his headache as it would be to cause him to become extremely dizzy, (tachycardic), have sudden changes in blood pressures, and possibly lose consciousness....and all of these effects will happen almost instantaneously from the point where he is significantly compressing the artery.

Now, if he's compressing the INTERNAL JUGULAR VEIN then, he will cause an immediate increase in intracranial pressure (due to BACKFLOW and this itself could increase headache pain almost instantly which can drop blood pressure and heartrate dramatically. Again, a potentially dangerous thing to do if a professional is not supervising the procedure. Now, why does the maneuver seem to be functional....though again, my recommendation is that this should never be an option to treat headache. Far too risky and dangerous.

But, one potential explanation is this:

Significant reduction in carotid artery bloodflow can overall reduce activity in the Trigeminal nerve neurovascular complex which is where cluster headaches are believed to emanate from in the final common pathway to the headache. This could effectively BREAK the "pain cycle" being invoked or created by the trigeminal nerve which is believed to be the likely bad player in migraines, clusters, etc. If he is actually reducing blood flow through the jugular system then, what could be happening is that he is causing an acute rise in venous return from the brain which then, immediately increases pressure in the cranium. This in turn compresses arteries feeding the trigeminal nerve and again you have the same overall effect of decreasing or shutting down that nerve's activity which could release the switch on the cluster or migraine headaches.

All the best....and keep harping on him NOT to do neck compressions no matter how terrible the headaches may become.

If I've adequately answered your questions could you do me a huge favor by CLOSING THE QUERY and being sure to include some fine words of feedback along with a 5 STAR rating if you feel my suggestions have helped? Again, many thanks for posing your questions and please let me know how things turn out.

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This query has utilized a total of 60 minutes of professional time in research, review, and synthesis for the purpose of formulating a return statement.

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