Headache attributed to carotid or vertebral artery pain.

Headache or pain in the face or neck attributed to the carotid or vertebral artery was not recognized as a special type of pain until the concept of carotidynia occurred in the 1960s. Carotidynia has long been assumed as an entity until modern imaging techniques showed that pain localized in the carotid region could most often be related to injury of the artery or other symptomatic causes. These causes include headache due to arterial dissection, which has been described as a true pain originating from the vessel structure itself and which has also been attributed to a comorbidity of migraine and cervical artery dissection. Furthermore, headache starting after endarterectomy, carotid angioplasty headache, headache attributed to intracranial endovascular procedures, and angiography headache have been listed among the headache and pain syndromes due to changes of the cervical arteries. It is still not clarified whether carotidynia is a specific idiopathic disease or whether the previous descriptions of carotidynia just resembled symptomatic causes of carotid pain.