Pain related to carotid artery?

[Deepseathree]

Hello all, it’s been awhile. I’ve been doing well with my anxiety lately. But today I started having a pain on or behind my carotid artery. The area is very tender to touch. Pain doesn’t exactly increase when I move it. Mainly it’s very tender. Also very vaguely hurts when doing not doing. The pain kind of radiates up the side of my neck to my ear. I want to say and hope it’s muscle related, but it not increasing with movement has me jumping to further unqualified conclusions.

[Gary A]

It’s not any of your carotid arteries. Carotid artery disease causes a whole host of symptoms, none of them are pain. If the pain is radiating to your ear it’s almost certainly muscle pain radiating through nerves, which are all interlinked in that area.

[Deepseathree]

It’s not any of your carotid arteries. Carotid artery disease causes a whole host of symptoms, none of them are pain. If the pain is radiating to your ear it’s almost certainly muscle pain radiating through nerves, which are all interlinked in that area.

That’s what I was thinking. It’s was just weird to me that it mainly stayed in one area for the most part and didn’t increase with movement.

[Gary A]

You can’t pinpoint a carotid artery as the cause of a slight pain in your neck. It’s as simple as that. If you reported this to a doctor they wouldn’t even remotely consider that as being the cause.

[Deepseathree]

You can’t pinpoint a carotid artery as the cause of a slight pain in your neck. It’s as simple as that. If you reported this to a doctor they wouldn’t even remotely consider that as being the cause.

I get that. If it was slight I wouldn’t worry. But it bothering me non stop and being very tender to touch is what worries me. Also with it continuing to hurt with no alleviation.

[Careful1]

Could you have maybe slept in an awkward position? The pain is probably muscular.

[Gary A]

Look, the thing is, by saying “yeah but” to everything I say you’re not attempting to see the rational side of things here. I understand that your neck pain is causing anxiety, but I can only repeat yet again that this in no way is related to a carotid artery.

It’s almost certainly a bit of run of the mill neck pain caused by muscles. It’s a very common human complaint. I understand that a persistent symptom causes anxiety in health anxious people, but things like muscle strains and tightness can and do last for years.

It could be down to something as simple as poor posture or how you sleep. You’re simply brushing past those very common explanations and worrying about one that has absolutely no basis in reality.

Carotid artery disease causes very noticeable neurological symptoms, it does not cause pain in the artery or surrounding area.

I repeat, if you went to a doctor with this complaint they wouldn’t even consider a carotid artery as the cause.

[Sparky16]

I just had a friend have a carotid artery dissection (she is OK now), and I can tell you that you do not have her symptoms. This is muscular.