Dural blood supply and CHiari Headaches?

General
1

I have never gotten a good explanation for the classic Chiari headache and got to wondering today. I was doing some non-Chiari related reading that was outlining the blood supply for the occipital dural tissue. The blood vessel is called the meningeal artery and branches of it come through the foramen magnum and then travel up to the occipital dura.

So what I was wondering was if pressure on this blood supply from the cerebellar tonsils is the actual source of the Chiari headache pain. The dura is not getting enough blood and our brain is processing that lack of blood as pain in the back of the head - hence the Chiari headache.

For me, the head ache pain never felt real in the sense that I could not identify the part of my head that was painful - I just had a vague sense that some part of the back of my head was painful - really painful.

I do not see any specialists anymore so I was wondering if other people have heard some good explanations for the Chiari headache or if anyone's neurosurgeon or neurologist has any thoughts on this. It might direct how that Chiari headache pain is dealt with if doctors understood what was causing the pain.

Just thinking while I am not sleeping...

2

For me, the NS explained it as a buildup of CSF surrounding my brain. When I had a Chiari headache, it was due to straining and caused the cerebellar tonsils to completely block the flow. This blockage-even as short as a few milliseconds caused an imbalance that caused CRAZY pain to shoot into my forehead-which is where the buildup was putting the most pressure.

He also explained that this buildup of pressure was squishing parts of my brain that caused the other loss of skills (balance, memory, fine motor, etc.) So for ME personally, it was 100% CSF buildup causing them. Migraines followed days of frequent mini bursts. It was my brains way of shutting me down to rest.

But like Emmaline said-it likely varies from one person to another depending on their anatomy.