Occipital neuralgia is a type of nerve pain or neuropathic pain and it affects the occipital nerves which are the nerves at the back of the head which supply the back of the head and the scalp.

There are two major nerves. The greater occipital nerve which goes over the top of the head and the lesser occipital nerve which goes around the ear.

Patients get very nasty symptoms. They describe electric shocks, sharp burning, stabbing types of pain in the territory of those nerves and they may also get continuous burning pain in those areas. So it's a very nasty type of neuropathic pain or nerve pain that they're affected by.