Chiropractors have long been known as “back doctors.” Yet, they offer so much more. Studies show chiropractic care benefits asthma, ADD, neck pain, shoulder pain, carpal tunnel, scoliosis, and more.
The reason is because chiropractors are the “doctors of the spine” and it turns out that spinal health affects everything else.
Take chronic neck pain for example.
In chiropractic terms, the neck is also called the cervical spine.
If you reach around your head and touch the base of your skull, that’s where it starts. If you continue running your fingers down the back of your neck, you’ll feel the knobby vertebrae.
These vertebrae support your head and allow it to turn left and right, up and down. However, while the flexibility of your neck makes it easy to look over your shoulder and merge on the highway, for example, this flexibility also puts the neck at risk.
You know what it feels like to wake up with a “crick” in your neck. Usually, that type of pain will disappear after a few hours. However, other types of neck pain aren’t as easily solved.
Chronic neck pain is common after accidents, aging, diseases, and bad posture.
Imagine, if you’re in a car accident. Often, the impact forces your head forward and then it “whips” back. That’s where the term “whiplash” comes from and it can be super painful. The reason is that such a force can injure the muscles, joints, discs, ligaments, and even the roots of the nerves.
Even simply getting older can lead to degenerative problems like spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, and degenerative disc disease.
Then there are the stresses of everyday life which can cause you to tighten your neck muscles.
Poor posture which can push your neck forward and cause your head to stay jutted out. That puts pressure on your neck and spine.
As you can see, there are many causes for chronic neck pain. But what can you do about it?
3 Treatments for Chronic Neck Pain:
There are many ways to treat chronic neck pain including massage therapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic care. Your medical professional will likely recommend a specific treatment plan but let’s see how these can help.
Massage Therapy – The massage therapist will work on manipulating the muscles in your neck to loosen them. Depending on the extent of your neck pain, you may feel immediate relief or it may take additional sessions. Many people find massage therapy combined with chiropractic care offers long-lasting pain relief because the neck muscles are able to relax which improves the chiropractic treatment.
Acupuncture – This ancient Chinese practice uses tiny needles to place in strategic points throughout your body. These locations – or acupuncture points – are message centers in the body and when triggered, they can improve blood flow in the body which helps reduce pain.
Chiropractic Care – The neck or “cervical spine” is at the top of the spine and the whole point of chiropractic treatments is to take care of the spine. Which means it makes sense that chiropractic adjustments can reduce chronic neck pain. According to the American Chiropractic Association, multiple studies have found more than half the study participants have found relief for neck pain with chiropractic care.
Now that you know these three all-natural pain relief treatment options for chronic neck pain, which will you try? If you’re located near Doylestown, Pa., we invite you for a free consultation.
One common cause of neck pain is as simple as what Dr. Jeff calls “text neck.” If that’s the case, the solution is simple, be aware of how much time you spend looking down at your phone or tablet and try to keep it eye level instead.
But there are plenty of other causes for neck pain too.
Things like whiplash, a slipped disc, or a pinched nerve are painful and relatively common. In rare instances, neck pain can indicate serious diseases like lymphoma.
In a minute, I’ll share more about these but first, let’s think about the structure of your neck so it makes sense WHY it’s so easy to strain it.
Vertebrae are the Building Blocks in Your Neck
As Medicine.net says, “ There are seven vertebrae that are the bony building blocks of the spine in the neck (the cervical vertebrae) that surround the spinal cord and canal. Between these vertebrae are discs, and nearby pass the nerves of the neck. Within the neck, structures include the skin, neck muscles, arteries, veins, lymph nodes, thyroid gland, parathyroid glands, esophagus, larynx, and trachea. Diseases or conditions that affect any of these tissues of the neck can lead to neck pain.”
In other words, your neck is strong, yet delicate.
There’s a lot going on with it.
And, your head is heavy.
In fact, did you know that your head weighs an average of 8 pounds? It’s true. It’s no wonder that looking down at a device for extended periods will create neck strain!
Beyond that though, let’s look at some of the other common causes of neck pain.
These are 4 Common Reasons for Neck Pain
Poor Posture – Slumping causes your head to jut forward which puts pressure on your cervical spine (the vertebrae in the neck.) Do this for hours on end, like when you hunch over a computer, and you can see why your neck would hurt.
Poor posture can also create hyperextension because your vertebrae strain too far (for too long) and it creates pain in your upper back.
Spine-health reminds us that “Good posture, as it relates to the neck, is commonly considered when the ears are positioned directly above the shoulders with the chest open and shoulders back. In this neutral position, also called normal head posture, stress on the neck is minimized because the head’s weight is naturally balanced on the cervical spine.”
This is why hours hunched over a computer screen leaves your shoulders and neck tight.
Whiplash – If you’ve been in a car accident, you may have experienced whiplash. The impact of hitting another car (or being hit) is jarring to the body, even if it’s a fender bender.
Whiplash is what we call a sudden impact of your head moving back and forth.
You may feel fine right away, but a few days later, you may feel achy. If you’ve been in an accident, it’s a good idea to have chiropractic treatment as soon as you can to alleviate any potential. It often doesn’t happen right away but a few days after the fact, you may feel achy. If you’ve been in an accident, it’s a good idea to have chiropractic treatment as soon as you can to alleviate any potential problems.
Pinched Nerve Neck Pain – You probably know the expression, “You’re getting on my nerves.” In a way, this comes with some truth to it. While people can’t get on your nerves – not literally – ligaments can and that’s a problem. So can bones and tendons.
With 95 million nerve cells and miles of nerve “traffic” cruising around your body it’s not surprising that ligaments, tendons, or even bones can shift position. This happens when you sit for long periods, when you’re sleeping or if there’s an accident like you fall down a flight of steps. When these get “off track” they put pressure on a nerve and cause you pain.
Degenerative Disc Disease – You’re probably aware that you have discs in your back.
As the doctors at Cedar-Sinai tells us “The discs are like shock absorbers between the bones of the spine and are designed to help the back remain flexible while resisting terrific forces in many different planes of motion.
Each disc has two parts:
1- A firm, tough outer layer, called the anulus fibrosus. The outer portion of this layer contains nerves. If the disc tears in this area, it can become quite painful.
2- A soft, jellylike core, the nucleus pulposus.
This part of the disc contains proteins that can cause the tissues they touch to become swollen and tender. If these proteins leak out to the nerves of the outer layer of the disc, they can cause a great deal of pain.”
These are just four common causes for neck pain. Each of them can be helped with massage therapy and regular chiropractic treatments. Are you ready to book yours? We’re located in Doylestown, on Logan Street across from Central Bucks East High School.
With the opioid crisis threatening millions of lives, you may wonder about alternative pain relief. While drugs like can definitely help, certain drugs may have longer term side effects that can have a detrimental effect.
The fact is, legal painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl may be ok in small doses but when prescribed for chronic pain, far too many people are becoming dependent on them.
“Of the 20.5 million Americans 12 or older that had a substance use disorder in 2015, 2 million had a substance use disorder involving prescription pain relievers and 591,000 had a substance use disorder involving heroin.”
It’s clear that people need additional options for treatment. Preferably natural solutions like acupuncture, chiropractic care, and massage therapy.”
For many of us in the Doylestown area, we associate opioid crisis with the tragic heroin problem. Those are heartbreaking stories.
However, as you can see from the above report if 2 million people have a problem with prescription pain relievers, that can also cause heartbreak.
We think it’s time to reevaluate our options.
In fact, the Center for Disease Control “reports, “Deaths from prescription opioids — drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone — have more than quadrupled since 1999,” rising right along with the numbers of prescriptions. 2
The problem with opioids is that many people start taking them for mild to moderate pain, only to develop a tolerance, which means you need to take more to get the same relief. If people are taking more opioid to feel the full effects, then that means they have become addicted. This would not happen if the current rate of opioid sales in your state is low. It’s important to control your pain, but not to the extent that you start to become addicted. Seek help if you think you are experiencing something similar. Physical dependence can also develop, leading to symptoms of withdrawal if you try to cut back or quit the drugs cold turkey. ” (Source: Mercola). When you read something like this, it comes as no surprise that mtd drug tests are being put into place, in order to detect the drug takers, but to also get them help to come off it effectively.
Fortunately, the traditional medical establishment is starting to recognize the limitations of conventional thinking. Over the years, lobbying chiropractic groups have gotten the attention of Congress.
As a result, Medicaid has extended coverage to chiropractic care in some states and the Food and Drug Administration has issued a statement that healthcare providers should broaden their approach to pain relief.
From a recent FDA report, “Healthcare providers “should be knowledgeable about the range of available therapies, when they may be helpful, and when they should be used as part of a multidisciplinary approach to pain management.”
We think this makes sense. After all, why not use multiple approaches? For example, if you have a painful accident, prescription drugs can relieve the acute pain and may be the best choice for a limited time.
However, if you’re suffering from chronic pain, natural pain relief like massage therapy, chiropractic care, and acupuncture can provide pain relief now while finding a long-term solution to your pain.
Your body has more than 90 BILLION nerve cells. Each of these carries messages to other parts of your body. Those messages show up as sensations like neck pain or back pain.
If you’re prone to neck pain, you might wonder if you have a pinched nerve.
Like it sounds, it’s pressure on a nerve. Imagine your bones, ligaments, or tendons literally, squeezing your nerve. That nerve pain can send pain radiating through your shoulder or arm. You might find it painful to turn your head from side to side or experience numbness.
The medical term for a pinched nerve in your neck is cervical radiculopathy and symptoms include:
Numbness
Tingling or burning sensation
Muscle weakness
Pain radiating into other areas of your body, for example, a pinched nerve in your neck can cause shoulder or arm pain.
Why would a ligament shift position? There are many reasons, including poor posture, repetitive motions, injury, accident, etc.
As you may know, your body is in a constant state of adjustment. One adjusts for tiny airline seats, your bed, desk chairs, high heels, working at your kitchen table, the list goes on. In fact, virtually everything you do (or wear) requires your body to make some type of adjustment that pulls it out of alignment. Done often enough, you can start feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Even if you don’t feel hunched over, you might still have trouble turning your head without pain.
You could also feel pinched nerve neck pain due to an earlier accident. Scar tissue or even pieces of bone can compress the nerve and an x-ray can show the exact problem. While you wouldn’t want to ignore neck pain, if you did, a pinched nerve could put you at risk for permanent nerve damage and chronic pain.
How Do You Treat a Pinched Nerve in the Neck?
As you know, your body is a complex machine and it may take more than one thing to relieve your pinched nerve neck pain. Here are some ideas for you.
Assess your habits. Do you need a better computer set up? Or a new pillow? As you probably know, the way you sit and sleep will affect your neck. Make sure it’s supported with an ergonomic work area and a supportive pillow.
Have a massage. It loosens up tight muscles and can help relieve the pain.
Chiropractic care can get at the source of the problem and works great in conjunction with massage therapy.
Over the counter NSAIDS like ibuprofen can help reduce pain and swelling
In severe cases, surgery may help.
Some chiropractic patients feel immediate relief from pinched nerve neck pain after one session. As you may know, chiropractors are trained to adjust your body so the ligaments, tendons, and bones find their rightful places, which means they’re no longer pinching your nerves.
At McQuaite Chiropractic in Doylestown, Dr. Jeff McQuaite will x-ray you to find the source of your neck pain and help you map out a treatment plan. You deserve to feel better.
Summer…you may have visions of outdoor BBQ’s, and maybe, moving your exercise program outdoors. Kayaking, golfing, biking, running…these are popular summer activities around Doylestown. However, as a chiropractor, I see frequent summer sports injuries.
They’re usually caused by an overly zealous exercise program.
If you’ve spend the past several months watching Game of Thrones rather than at the gym, take it easy at first. You’re better off with shorter exercise sessions than one mammoth one that will leave you exhausted, sore and possibly hurt.
You also want to make sure you have the proper form in whatever you’re doing. Take golfing for instance, some weekend golfers hunch their shoulders when they hit the ball rather than bending from the waist. The “hunched shoulder” technique puts a lot of strain on your neck. Plus, swinging a golf club a hundred times or more in a round of golf can lead to a sore rotator cuff and lower back. The same goes for tennis players; a really common injury for you is twisted ankles as a result of not positioning yourself correctly in readiness to receive the ball. Your main line of thought might be ‘what is my tennis rating‘ but your health should come first, and an injury could also cause some serious damage to your future in the sport.
Practice proper form and be careful when you lift your golf club bag.
If you’re a runner, you know there’s a difference between running on a treadmill and running outside. For example, you may hit dirt or gravel trails or you may run on pavement. Each of these surfaces require hundreds of micro-adjustments with every step.
In daily life and in sports, your body develops certain habits which affect your posture and pull your body out of alignment. When you’re misaligned, you may be more injury-prone.
How Chiropractic Care Can Protect
Your Body From Summer Sports Injuries
If you’ve never been to a chiropractor before, you may not be aware of how the process works or how it can benefit more than your back.
In simple terms, daily life puts stresses on your body. You may spend hours a day sitting hunched over a computer. Such posture strains your upper back, shoulders and neck and creates misalignment in your body called “subluxation.”
A chiropractic treatment realigns your body. When your bones and muscles are in alignment with one another you experience pain relief because your bone isn’t pushing on a nerve. You can also have better form on the playing field and perform better.
Famous athletes from Tiger Woods to Arnold Schwarzenegger have relied on regular chiropractic treatments to give them an advantage. So have many Olympic gold medalists. You can track their progress on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook. If you’re thinking about trying to win a gold medal, you may want to do the same, set up an Instagram account to get things started and, gain a fan base! You could also look at getting some free followers in sites similar to socialfollow.
Just as star athletes protect their bodies by taking care of it, you can too. Regular chiropractic adjustments keep your body in alignment, and help protect you from injury.
Enjoy your summer and take a extra care to prevent summer sports injuries. If you need chiropractic care and you’re in the Doylestown area, give us a call at 267-247-7000. We offer a free consultation.
If you suffer from chronic neck pain do you know the reason why? Millions of Americans suffer from neck pain for all kinds of reasons from whiplash to spending too many hours hunched over a digital device.
You might be surprised at the way you can find neck pain relief. From gentle exercises to massage therapy and chiropractic care, there are a lot of options. However, to find pain relief and manage it well, you’ll want to get to the source of the pain.
Do you know why you have frequent neck pain?
One of the most common reasons you may suffer with neck pain is because you spend the majority of your hours hunched over a computer. If that’s the case, you may need a better ergonomic setup.
Another technological pain in the neck is “text neck”, looking down at your phone for long periods. If so, trying lifting the phone (and your head) so the device is eye level.
Is your head causing your neck pain? And no, I don’t mean you “made it up.” Merely, your head is heavy. It weighs between 10-12 pounds so if you’re bending it forward for hours at a time, that’s a lot of stress on both the tiny bones in your neck and the surrounding soft tissue. No wonder your neck aches!
3 Common Reasons for Neck Pain
Computer/devices (being bent over all the time stresses your neck and upper body as you can see above.)
Sleeping on a pillow that doesn’t support your neck. It can require a few different tries to find one that works for you but many people like the memory foam type pillows.
Poor posture contributes too. By now you may be seeing a pattern in the hunched shoulders with the head jutting forward problem. If you can train yourself to stand up straight, you’ll improve your posture and even your breathing since oxygen will be able to circulate easier in your body.
Let’s face it, a lot of our habits can contribute to on-going neck pain and sometimes it only takes a few simple tweaks to find relief.
For example, by adjusting your computer monitor to eye level and improving your posture, you’ll reduce some of the strain on your neck. Ice and health therapy can help too. Use ice for the first 24-48 hours followed by heat therapy. A heating pad or one of those microwaveable rice-filled pillows will work.
If you find yourself seeking neck pain relief often, then come in for a chiropractic evaluation. Chiropractic care can relieve neck pain and we can help you assess the source. If you’re in Doylestown, Pa, McQuaite Chiropractic can help. We offer consultations and take most insurance.
Take chronic neck pain for example.
