Neck Pain

Muscle Sprain/Strain
People are particularly good at injuring their necks. Some time it happens with a sneeze, sometime in our sleep, sometimes it's just an imperfect or strained movement. These examples usually involve a muscle strain. The good news here is that muscle strains usually heal up with minimal care needed in just a couple weeks for healthy individuals. Adjustments, stretching, and electrical muscle stimulation are generally good treatments for such injuries.

 

Less frequently, people get injured in a fall, car accident, etc. More traumatic injuries may involve the ligaments and tears in the muscles requiring more treatment and a longer recovery. These more serious injuries often lead to chronic problems and early arthritis that may require extensive treatment over time. 

Traumatic Disc Injuries

Just like the muscles, tendons, and ligaments, the discs may be injured causing bulges, protrusions, and or extrusions which may affect the nerves that travel through the cervical spine. When this happens people get local pain in the neck and shoulder with pain (burning, electric, etc) or numbness/tingling radiating down the arm. These are serious injuries, often leading to surgery.

 

We have a lot of good, conservative treatments for these types of injuries. The good news is that most of these injuries do not require surgery. However, they often lead to long-term chronic neck pain. The doctor may order an MRI and/or make a referral to a surgeon or pain management specialist when warranted. 

 

Arthritis (disc bulges, bone spurring, loss of cartilage)
Everybody get arthritis just like gray hair and wrinkles. The degree of wear and tear is somewhat dependant on past injuries, genetics, lifestyle, and luck. Discs wear down, dry out and get smaller overtime with bulges being present in 90% of people over the age of 60, 50% of individuals over the age of 50 and a 30% of healthy individuals at just 20 years of age. As discs degenerate so do the supporting facet joints which causes cartilage loss and joint pain. Bulging discs may put pressure on nerves leading to a "pinched nerve" where pain, numbness, tingling may course down the arm. Bone spurs tend to form is locations where the discs or cartilage is wearing down. They are often painless but can form in such a way that they may cause a narrowing for the spinal cord or spinal nerves.

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Inflammatory Arthritis / Autoimmune Disease

Rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis are the three top types of autoimmune arthritis that affect the cervical spine. While physical care like chiropractic and acupuncture can help a lot the primary treatment needs to focus on the autoimmune disease. I often see people before they have a diagnosis. A referral will be necessary for testing and treatment of most autoimmune diseases. However, physical treatments often provide a lot of relief and are a good way to maintain spine health in the long run.

Postural imbalance / Overuse
Postural problems generally begin in our childhood. However, the symptoms of a postural imbalance often peak in our late 20s and 30s causing things like neck pain, shoulder pain, and headaches. Why didn't we just listen to our moms? Unfortunately, posture is not an easy thing to change. While physical treatments like adjustments, soft-tissue work, stretching and strengthen help a lot, posture is something that must be practiced everyday. postural imbalances may take a very long time to correct. Most people require several months to affect any real change.