please help

i am 48 yr female been having head pain starts back head to left side of head i also have been having some cracking sounds when  turn my head my dr scheduled an mri to check for tumor why would she think this i am on seizure med since 1985 never found out why i had seizures im worried could you answer questions to help me understand what might be going on

[Neuro Forum]

Thanks for using the forum. I am happy to address your questions, and my answer will be based on the information you provided here. Please make sure you recognize that this forum is for educational purposes only, and it does not substitute for a formal office visit with your doctor.

Without the ability to examine you and obtain a history, I can not tell you what the exact cause of your symptoms is. However I will try to provide you with some useful information.

There are several causes of headaches. Headaches can be divided into primary and secondary. Primary headache disorders are headaches without a direct cause. These are diagnosed after secondary causes have been excluded. Secondary headache disorders are due to an underlying problem, there are many many causes but some include medication side effects, systemic illness, nervous system infection, tumors, bleeds in the brain or clots in the veins of the brain, and others.

When someone has never had headaches before and then suddenly begins to have them, it is always a good idea to do imaging of the brain to rule out a structural problem such as a tumor. This is a general recommendation, but does not necessarily imply your physician is concerned specifically that you have a tumor based on something in your history or examination, though of course I can not know for sure and this would be an important question for you to ask her. If you MRI does not show an explanation for your headaches, then it could be a primary headache disorder, which could be treated depending on your exact symptoms. Headaches are very common and it may be unrelated to your seizures, however if you never had a recent MRI (if you only had an MRI in the 1980s when your seizure began) your MRI this time could potentially reveal a cause to your seizures since MRIs are of better resolution now than in the past. If a tumor is the cause of both your seizures and headaches, it would be extremely unlikely that it would be a malignant tumor since it means it would have been there since the 1980s without apparently causing you much problem besides seizure, so this should be reassuring to you.

Regarding the relation of your headaches to your neck discomfort, one potential cause if cervicogenic headache. Cervicogenic headache is a headache that is "referred" to the head from bony structures, muscles, and other soft tissue in the neck and shoulders. Symptoms are usually one-sided and include: precipitation of head pain by neck movement or awkward neck positions, head pain when external pressure is applied to the neck or occipital region, restricted range of motion of the neck, and neck, shoulder and arm pain. Diagnosis is with x-rays or sometimes MRI of the neck. Treatment for cervicogenic headache includes physical therapy, medications, behavioral therapy, and other modalities.

Thank you for this opportunity to answer your questions, I hope you find the information I have provided useful, good luck.