One of the most common reasons people come into our office is neck pain and it seems that in our modern world it is becoming more and more common.
Neck pain can have a variety of causes. Many people will suffer from neck pain as a result of prolonged postures at home or at work. We spend so much of our time sitting, either at a desk at work, in the car or on the couch at home. Very often when we are seated in these positions our neck will be projected or slumped forwards. The average head weighs around 5kg, so you can imagine that as it falls forwards the muscles at the back of the neck and even down into the shoulders are going to have to work very hard to keep it there leading to tightness, pain and often injury.
Of course posture is not the only cause of neck pain. Often neck pain will be as a result of more traumatic incidents. Car accidents, falls, playground injuries, learning to ride a bike and even birthing injuries can all lead to neck problems. It is important to remember too that the symptoms won't always show up straight away. Sometimes these incidents can misalign your neck leading to dysfunction and wear and tear that doesn't show up as neck pain until years or even decades later.
Stress can play a big role in neck and shoulder pain as well. We all know that in times of stress we tend to carry a lot of tension in our necks and between our shoulder blades. This tension can cause pain by itself and can make us more prone to injuries in the future too.
And remember that it usually isn't just one of these causes at play. Often there will be thousands of separate events, or stressors, that will build up over a lifetime. This is why the incident that eventually starts off the symptoms can often be quite minor. People will say, "I was just turning my head and I ‘put my neck out'." What this means is that these stressors had been building up over time and that turning the neck wasn't the cause of the pain, it was just the final straw.
So what can you do about it? Well, you could use pain killers to try and mask the pain. That won't get to the cause of the problem though. The problem will still be there and in fact is likely to be getting worse as it continues to wear and tear.
So what is the underlying cause? People often want to diagnose the underlying problem by saying that it is either a muscle problem, a joint or ligament problem, or a nerve problem. The truth is that it is most likely all of the above. It is not possible to have a joint dysfunction without it affecting the nerves. It is similarly not possible to have a muscle problem without it affecting the joints. So what we have is a nerve/joint/muscle/ligament problem. We chiropractors call that a subluxation. Of course this nerve interference can cause more than just pain too, so removing these subluxations can help with many other aspects of your health too.
Specific chiropractic adjustments can help restore the proper functioning of your spine and nervous system and remove these subluxations. This removes the underlying cause of your problem and allows your body to start to heal. A good chiropractor will also give you advice on what aspects of your lifestyle caused these subluxations in the first place, allowing you to not only correct the problem but also helping you stop recreating it in the future.
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