A 51-year-old previously healthy man was admitted with severe neck pain for 6 days. In the past month, he felt neck stiffness, accompanied by swelling and persistent dull pain of the upper anterior chest wall, which could be transiently relieved by taking oral ibuprofen. Six days before admission, the patient’s neck stiffness transited to an endurable dull ache. When turning his head, there was severe burning pain in the posterior neck and occiput, followed immediately by an electric shocklike numbness on ipsilateral side tongue, which led to a forced head position. Magnetic resonance imaging of the cervical spine with gadolinium on admission revealed signal abnormality in C1/C2 vertebrae (Figure 1A). In the past 3 days, with the intensification of neck pain, the patient found pustules on both hands, which gradually increased. He had no history of tobacco, alcohol, or drug misuse. On examination, he was afebrile. There was tenderness in the right sternoclavicular articulation, upper neck, post aurem, and occiput. Multiple pustules were seen in the palm and back of both hands (Figure 1B). Complete blood cell count and liver and kidney function yielded normal results, except for elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) of 93 mm/h and C-reactive protein (CRP) level of 5.5 mg/dL (to convert to milligrams per liter, multiply by 10). Results of workup for rheumatic and infectious disease, including antinuclear, antineutrophil cytoplasmic and anticardiolipin antibodies, human leukocyte antigen B27, repeated blood cultures, rapid plasma reagin test, Aspergillus galactomannan antigen, brucella, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and rickettsial antibodies, were all negative. Cell count, protein, and glucose in cerebrospinal fluid were normal. Cultures of cerebrospinal fluid revealed no organisms. Whole-body fluorodeoxyglucose–positron emission tomography/computed tomography revealed no malignancy.