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At Injury Care Centers, our team understands how disruptive headaches and migraines can be to your daily life. We see firsthand the impact these conditions have on work, family, and overall well-being, and we’re dedicated to helping you find answers and lasting relief.
From the moment you walk into one of our Jacksonville clinics, you’ll be cared for by professionals who listen carefully to your story. Our doctors, therapists, and staff work together to get to the root cause of your headaches, using a combination of thorough evaluation, advanced treatments, and ongoing support.
We believe that every patient deserves a treatment plan tailored to their unique situation. Our collaborative team approach means you’ll benefit from a range of knowledge, practices, and skills, ensuring you get the care that’s right for you, not just a one-size-fits-all solution.
If you’re struggling with frequent headaches or migraines, let our team help you take back control. Call or visit any of our Jacksonville locations; walk-ins are always welcome. We’re here to guide you toward relief and a better quality of life.
Identifying your specific type of headache is the most important first step, but it’s easy to miss.
After an accident, it’s common to experience more than one type of headache at once, which can make diagnosis and treatment more challenging.
Yes, and it’s common. The nerves supplying the upper neck and those supplying parts of the head share the same territory in the brainstem, so signals from the upper cervical joints get perceived as pain in the head. A headache that starts at the base of the skull and travels forward, provoked by neck movement or sustained posture, is the classic pattern.
There are some telltale signs: pain that starts at the base of your skull and moves forward, headaches that kick in with neck movement or holding a position, limited neck rotation on one side, or tenderness at the top of the neck. Sometimes people are treated for migraine but don’t get much better; if their neck hasn’t been checked, it’s worth a closer look before adding more medications.
If your neck is causing your headaches, treating your neck can help resolve the real issue, not just cover up the pain.
This also explains why you might have headaches without any neck pain. Referred pain means the problem can start in your neck, even if it doesn’t hurt there. That’s why we always check the neck during a headache assessment, even if you don’t mention neck pain.
Headache is the most common symptom after a concussion, and the two need to be considered together.
A concussion doesn’t require losing consciousness, and most don’t involve it. It also doesn’t require striking your head, since the rapid acceleration of a whiplash mechanism is capable of producing one on its own. Symptoms beyond headache complete the picture: difficulty concentrating, feeling mentally slowed, sensitivity to light or noise, dizziness or unsteadiness, irritability, and sleep that has changed since the event.
Symptoms often appear or worsen over the days after an injury instead of immediately, which mirrors the delayed onset pattern seen across crash injuries generally.
Our practice offers brain injury evaluation, EEG and nerve conduction studies, alongside digital X-ray in the building and MRI at our University Boulevard South location, so an assessment that raises a question can usually answer it without sending you elsewhere.
Anyone whose headache after a head injury is steadily worsening, or who is repeatedly vomiting, confused, or increasingly drowsy, needs emergency assessment, not an appointment.
Yes, the rapid acceleration and deceleration of the head in a whiplash mechanism can produce a concussion with no direct impact at all. Loss of consciousness isn’t required either, and most concussions don’t involve it. If you’ve felt foggy, unusually tired, irritable, or light-sensitive since a crash or a fall, that’s worth an evaluation, whether or not anything struck your head.
It’s a recognized pattern where frequent use of pain relief contributes to more frequent headaches, which prompts more frequent use. The clue is usually frequency instead of severity: headaches on most days of the month, in somebody taking something for them on most days of the month. Any change to medication is a decision for your prescriber, made with a plan.
The mechanism is a loop that establishes itself gradually, without any single decision that looks wrong.
It’s worth saying plainly what this isn’t. It isn’t a suggestion that anybody has done something foolish, and it isn’t a claim that pain relief is harmful. It’s a recognized clinical pattern that develops from an entirely reasonable response to pain.
Nothing on this page is a reason to stop or reduce any medication on your own. Changes to prescribed medication are a decision for the prescriber, made with a plan, and stopping some medications abruptly is unwise. What we’d ask is that you bring an honest account of how often you’re taking something, because that answer changes what we recommend.
A climate with no real off-season means head impacts arrive here year-round, and the presentation differs from the crash version.
Sport-related concussion often goes unreported, partly because symptoms are mild at first and partly because there’s a game happening. “Shook it off” describes a decision and not an assessment.
Repeated impacts matter more than any single one. Returning to contact before symptoms have fully settled is the situation with the most concern attached to it, and it’s why return-to-activity decisions are staged instead of made in one go.
Headaches after non-contact recreational activity are usually a different matter, often relating to neck position, exertion, heat, or dehydration, all of which are worth separating before anything else is considered.
A headache that started with a sporting impact gets the same evaluation as one that started in a car. The full range of injuries across the practice is on our injury clinic page.
The first visit is an assessment, and most of it is history, not testing.
Your clinician asks where the pain is, what it feels like, how long episodes last, what brings them on, what makes them better, what else happens alongside them, when they started, and what’s changed since. That set of answers does most of the classification.
Then the physical examination: cervical range of motion measured instead of estimated, palpation of the upper cervical segments and the muscles at the base of the skull to see whether your headache can be reproduced, a neurological screen covering cranial nerves, reflexes, strength, sensation, and coordination, and balance testing where a concussion is in question.
If your headache can be reproduced by pressing on a specific area, that’s a helpful clue, pointing to the source rather than just describing the pain.
Imaging isn’t routine for headache and is ordered where a specific question needs answering. EEG and brain injury evaluation are available where the presentation warrants them.
Can a doctor tell what kind of headache I have without a scan?
Usually yes. Headache classification is made primarily from the history and the physical examination, including whether the headache can be reproduced by moving the neck. Imaging is used to answer a specific question, not to make the diagnosis.
Treatment follows the classification, which is why the classification matters.
Where the neck is the source, treatment is aimed there: chiropractic care for the upper cervical segments, manual and soft-tissue work for the muscles at the base of the skull, and the deep neck stabilizer work that stops the restriction from returning. That last part is what determines whether relief lasts past a few days. Where a nerve is involved, as in occipital neuralgia, treatment addresses the tissue around it along with the mechanical factors loading it.
Supportive therapies are chosen based on the findings: photobiomodulation laser therapy, TECAR, HEIT, electrical muscle stimulation, and therapeutic ultrasound.
Where headaches aren’t responding to conservative care, interventional pain management and prescribing are available inside the practice, so escalation is a conversation instead of a referral and a wait.
For migraine specifically, the work usually combines identifying and reducing triggers, addressing any neck component contributing to the pattern, and medical management where appropriate. Sleep, hydration, meal timing, and stress all belong in that conversation, not as a substitute for treatment but because they measurably affect frequency.
We’ll also tell you when the answer is somewhere else. A presentation that points at a primary neurological problem needs the appropriate specialist, and recognizing that is part of the assessment instead of a failure of it.
The diary is the most useful piece of homework in this whole area, and it takes about a minute a day.
Record each headache: the date, roughly how long it lasted, where the pain was, what you took if anything and how much, and what you were doing in the hours beforehand.
Add sleep and meals if you can manage it, because both show up as patterns more often than people expect. A headache that reliably arrives on the days after a short nig, ht, or on days when lunch was skipped, is telling you something no examination can.
What we do with it is look for structure and not read it as a list. Frequency tells us whether medication use is part of the pattern. Timing and triggers separate migraine from a neck-driven headache. Duration and side distinguish the categories further.
Two weeks is usually enough to be useful, and four is better. The diary also becomes the baseline against which treatment gets measured, which matters because memory for headaches is unreliable in a specific direction: people consistently underestimate improvement, because a good week doesn’t leave the impression a bad day does.
Trigger hunting can become its own problem, so it’s worth being systematic instead of eliminating things one at a time forever.
Sleep is the most consistent factor across headache types, and both directions matter. Too little sleep and a substantially changed sleep schedule are each capable of provoking headaches, which is why weekend headaches are a recognized pattern instead of a coincidence.
Hydration and meal timing are worth testing because they’re easy to change and because skipped meals are a common provoker. Neither is a cure, and both are worth ruling in or out early.
Screen work usually acts through the neck, not through the eyes. A monitor below eye level pulls the head forward, and sustained forward head posture loads exactly the upper cervical segments that refer pain into the head.
Test one thing at a time and give each two weeks, using the diary to judge instead of your impression. Changing four things at once and feeling better tells you nothing about which one mattered, and it usually means keeping all four indefinitely.
Not everybody arrives within weeks of an injury. A large share of the headache patients we see have had them for years, often since an accident nobody connected them to.
Long-standing headaches are still worth assessing, and the reason is the same as for recent ones: the classification may never have been done properly. A headache treated as migraine for a decade, in somebody whose neck has never been examined, is worth reconsidering.
Old injuries matter here. A whiplash injury from years ago frequently leaves a segment that never regained its movement, and the compensation around it builds quietly. The headaches can start long after the original event and still be connected to it.
Medication history matters just as much. Years of frequent pain relief can become part of the pattern, and identifying that changes the plan more than any treatment does.
We would still start with the same assessment: the history, the neck examination, and whether your headache can be reproduced from a specific segment. Being told for years that nothing can be done is not the same as having been examined properly.
Most headaches are not emergencies. A small number are, and these are the ones to act on without hesitating.
Call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room for a sudden severe headache that peaks within seconds, a headache with fever and a stiff neck, a headache with confusion, difficulty speaking, weakness on one side or vision loss, a headache after a head injury that keeps worsening, repeated vomiting, a seizure, or a headache with loss of consciousness.
If you have a headache that feels very different from your usual headaches or is the worst you’ve ever had, treat it as urgent and seek care right away.
For serious injuries across northeast Florida, go to UF Health Jacksonville, the region’s Level I trauma center.
It depends on how the headaches started. After a car accident in Florida, your own auto insurance covers medical care as long as you’re seen within 14 days, and post-crash headaches are one of the most common reasons people come in. For a work-related injury, workers’ compensation usually applies. For headaches that developed over time, health insurance is the normal route.
Under Florida’s no-fault law, auto insurance medical benefits are available only where you receive initial services and care within 14 days of the accident.
That deadline catches headache patients out more than most, because post-crash headaches often start a day or two later, and then a week disappears dealing with the car.
We see patients with or without insurance. If you don’t have coverage, call 904-783-0008 and ask about our Affordable Plans.
Treating headaches usually takes a series of visits, not just a single appointment.
| Area | Address | Weekday hours |
|---|---|---|
| Oakleaf, Argyle, Blanding | 9680 Argyle Forest Blvd, Suite 20 | 8:00 am to 7:00 pm |
| University, MRI on site | 4004 University Blvd S | 8:00 am to 7:00 pm |
| Southside | 9191 RG Skinner Pkwy, Suite 201 | 8:00 am to 7:00 pm |
| Westside, Murray Hill | 5222 Lenox Ave | 8:30 am to 6:30 pm |
| Mandarin | 3560 Cardinal, 8:00 am Dr,7:00 pm, 101 | 8:30 am to 6:00 pm |
| Oceanway, Northside | 13453 North Main St N, Suite 501 | 8:00 am to 7:00 pm |
We also have a clinic at Jacksonville Beach, on 16th Avenue North.
Anyone traveling the Blanding Boulevard corridor will find Argyle Forest Boulevard the shorter run, which matters when light sensitivity makes a long drive its own problem.
No appointment is needed on weekdays, and telemedicine covers review conversations where a physical examination isn’t the point, which is useful when a screen and a car journey are both unappealing.
Yes, nerves from the upper neck and parts of the head share territory in the brainstem, so upper cervical joint problems are commonly perceived as a headache.
Not routinely. Classification comes from the history and examination, and imaging is used to answer a specific question when one arises.
Frequently a day or two later, since inflammation and muscle guarding build over the first 24 to 72 hours rather than appearing immediately.
Yes, rapid acceleration of the head, as in a whiplash mechanism, can produce a concussion without any direct impact.
A recognized pattern where frequent use of pain relief contributes to more frequent headaches. Any change to medication is a decision for your prescriber.
Yes, we evaluate and treat migraines alongside cervicogenic, post-traumatic, and other headache types, and refer when a presentation calls for it.
Yes, we see patients with or without insurance. Call 904-783-0008 and ask about our Affordable Plans.
Our practice has treated injuries and nothing else since 2010, and headache is where that focus produces the most useful difference, because a headache arriving after an injury is routinely treated as a headache in general rather than as a consequence of what happened to the neck.
Injury Care Centers classifies before treating, examines the neck in every case rather than only when it’s the presenting complaint, and has brain injury evaluation, EEG, digital X-ray, and MRI available within the practice. Medical management and interventional options are available without a referral out.
The single most useful thing you can bring to a first appointment is two weeks of notes: what days you had a headache, how long each lasted, what you took and how much, and what you were doing beforehand. It’s a short piece of homework, and it frequently identifies the pattern faster than anything that happens in the room. Come in on any weekday, call 904-783-0008 to ask about it first, or find addresses and hours for all our Jacksonville locations.
Last reviewed: August 2026
Medically reviewed by Dr. James Gilas, MD, Florida license no. ME92179
This page is general information and not a substitute for an exam by a clinician. If you have emergency symptoms, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.
Florida law described here is general information, not legal advice. Deadlines and rights depend on your situation, and a lawyer is the right person to advise you on a claim.
