Back pain often gets all the attention, but neck pain is an increasingly common problem that can be just as debilitating. Neck pain may cause fatigue, sleep disturbance, and difficulty doing necessary tasks. Fortunately, there are treatments that can address it. Here’s everything you need to know about neck pain and your treatment options.
What Does Neck Pain Feel Like?
This may seem like a no-brainer, but neck problems are sometimes difficult to spot. You may feel pain in your shoulders or upper back and stiffness in your neck. Unexplained numbness or tingling in your extremities, sudden hearing problems, or frequent headaches can also be signs of issues with the cervical spine. Of course, many people also experience pain in their neck that may radiate out to other areas.
Can you turn your head so that your chin is over your shoulder? If not, you may have a neck injury. Reduced range of motion is sometimes present without pain.
If you had an injury that healed but still have painful areas in your neck, you might have trigger points. These are areas of tight, painful tissue that can cause chronic pain. When they impact nerves, they may cause tingling or numbness.
What Causes Neck Pain?
The part of the spine that runs through your neck is called the cervical spine. The cervical spine has openings that allow arteries to bring blood to the brain. It also houses critical nerves and blood vessels, including some related to hearing, vision, diaphragm movement (necessary for breathing), and balance. Compared to other parts of the spine, the neck doesn’t have much muscle around it. Muscles support and protect the spine. Less muscle means your neck is more prone to injury.
There are four common causes of neck pain:
- Bad Posture: Sitting hunched over your device, especially if you are looking down with your neck, strains the spinal cord. Over time, bad posture can straighten the cervical spine, causing chronic pain, stiffness, and instability.
- Traumatic Injury: Whiplash injuries typically occur during car accidents. They happen when the neck is moved forward and then back in a motion that looks similar to a cracking whip. This extreme movement stretches some ligaments and tightens others. It can even straighten the curve of the spine. Other accidents and contact sports can cause torn ligaments, damaged nerves, and spinal subluxations.
- Disc Injuries: Herniated, bulging, or flattened discs can result from wear and tear or traumatic injury. Discs are fluid-filled cushions that sit between vertebrae. Most disc injuries heal on their own, but sometimes they cause chronic pain.
- Stiffness: Neck stiffness can result from things other than injury. Sleeping in a bad position, holding your phone between your shoulder and head, or being stressed can cause stiffness, reduced range of motion, and pain.
What Are My Treatment Options?
Neck pain is usually caused by more than one structure. For instance, if your spinal curve is out of alignment, your ligaments and muscles can be tight or overstretched. We must address both soft tissue injuries and spinal problems. Common treatments include:
Therapeutic Exercise/Posture Rehab: To correct spinal curvature, chiropractors use stretches, exercises, and at-home care. Strengthening weak areas and loosening tight ones will help guide your spine back into alignment. Your chiropractor will prescribe exercises and stretches for you to do at home. The goal is to treat damage and correct your posture, so you don’t continue to injure your neck. It’s vital to follow through with your at-home treatments to see results.
Spinal Adjustment: Disc injuries and spinal subluxations can benefit from spinal adjustment. This is a treatment where the chiropractor uses his hands and precisely applied force to move vertebrae back into alignment. Misaligned vertebrae pull on soft tissues, so realigning them is crucial for soft tissue treatment.
Spinal Decompression Therapy: This is a form of computerized traction that gently stretches the spine. Chiropractors use it for disc issues in the neck. It creates negative pressures between vertebrae, bringing oxygen and nutrients to the area to encourage healing. It can also desensitize overactive nerves and assist with chronic pain management.
K-Laser Therapy: Laser therapy uses red and near-infrared light to stimulate healing at a cellular level. It brings healing blood flow to the area and causes cells to produce collagen, a key component of tissue building.
Massage: Trigger points form in response to injury and muscle tightness. Sometimes, even after the original injury heals, trigger points remain. A massage therapist can break up trigger points and relax tight muscles.
All of these treatments are backed by studies and FDA-Cleared for safety. Most of them require more than one treatment to reach treatment goals, but they also begin addressing pain quickly. The American Medical Association recommends conservative treatments like these for neck and back pain over oral medications or surgery.
Is it Possible to Prevent Neck Pain?
It’s not always possible to prevent a car accident, but other types of neck injuries can be prevented. Using good posture when sitting and standing, lifting correctly, and taking appropriate safety measures when playing sports can prevent neck pain and injury. You can lower your neck and back pain risk by eating healthy foods, exercising, and not smoking.
Regular visits to your chiropractor will help you catch neck problems before they become serious. It’s easy to slip into bad posture habits without realizing it. Your chiropractor can see the first signs of bad posture and help you correct it. They can also realign vertebrae before subluxations cause pinched nerves or other problems.
Neck Pain Relief in Tennessee
At Stanlick Chiropractic, our experienced providers will create a personalized treatment plan to address your neck pain. Schedule a consultation today to find out how chiropractic care can help you feel your best.