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Do you suffer from neck pain? If you do, you’re not alone. Nearly 75 percent of American adults will suffer from neck pain at some point in their lives. And, looking at our anatomy, it’s no wonder so many of us do. Though having your head perched on top of your spine gives you a great view of your environment, the set-up is rather like propping a bowling ball atop a tower of blocks. The price? Our necks are prone to injury of the muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints. But by paying attention to our posture, doing regular stretching and strengthening exercises, and visiting our chiropractors, we can help keep our necks pain-free. Jennings Chiropractic Neurology Clinic has 26 years experience in dealing with these conditions and more.

Causes of Neck Pain

Neck pain ranges from mild (annoying and distracting) to severe (incapacitating). Poor posture during normal, everyday activities such as watching TV, using a computer, reading a book, or talking on the phone can easily trigger minor neck pain. TV watching can be particularly bad for the neck if you’re lying on a couch, with your head propped at an awkward angle for a prolonged period of time. Holding the phone between the jaw and shoulder (rather than in your hand), reading at a desk or table with your head hung over a book, or working with a computer monitor below eye level can also be particularly stressful for the neck. By resting and making efforts not to repeat the offending stresses on the neck, minor neck pain usually disappears on its own within a day or so.

Neck pain that won’t go away or keeps coming back can signal a more serious underlying problem. Subluxations or joint restrictions; injuries such as whiplash; diseases like osteoarthritis, meningitis and tumors; congenital malformation; and degeneration (such as that in arthritis) require more than rest. A trained healthcare professional such as a doctor of chiropractic (DC) can help. He or she can determine whether the cause of your neck pain is minor and easily treatable or more serious and requiring more intensive, extended treatment. Then he or she may recommend chiropractic adjustment, massage, natural anti-inflammatory supplements, and/or strengthening and stretching exercises. In some cases, the DC will refer you to a specialist.

Prevention is Key

How can you avoid the need for treatment in the first place? The first step is to take note of your everyday posture. If your job requires a lot of phone use, consider wearing a headset. Do you slouch when you watch TV? Lie on the couch? Choose to sit upright, in a posture-supporting chair. When studying or reading, avoid putting the book or magazine on a flat surface. Instead, consider using a book prop. And, if you notice your computer monitor is below eye level, elevate it by placing it on top of a shelf or tower.

If you experience neck pain that doesn’t abate within 24 hours, seek the advice of a trained healthcare specialist for the appropriate diagnosis and treatment. And remember, because chiropractors specialize in the neuromusculoskeletal system, they are some of the most well-trained healthcare professionals to consult about neck pain.

What would you consider to be a standard of health? Flexibility. Musculoskeletal, chemical and emotional flexibility. You're born loose and you die stiff. Loss of motion in between is a loss of vitality, and loss of function. Maybe just at microtraumatic/microscopic level most of the time, but it adds up to a point where either you injure yourself pushing your newly restricted limits of joint and tissue tensile strength, or you find you just can't do which he used to do and you don't know where it went.

The key to understanding the technique I use,called Neuromuscular Reeducation, is knowing about adhesions. When an area is injured, whether it's muscle, connective tissue, fascia, tendon or some combination of these elements (as most injuries are) the body handles this inflammatory response of the tissues to trauma, the only way it knows how, through hyperplasia of the affected tissue followed by a fibrous healing, the laying down of a less elastic, second grade, poorly vascularized scar tissue to protect the involved areas. Adhesions form wherever damage and inflammation have occurred. They limit both strength and range of motion. It can be thought of as a K mart grade of connective tissue. This response occurs whether you take anti-inflammatory medication or not.

Every muscle in the body is surrounded by a smooth facial sheath, (connective tissue) every muscular fascicule and fibril are surrounded by fascia that can exert pressures of over 2000 pounds per square inch. Neuromuscular Reeducation is a hands on approach to the evaluation, and structural and functional treatment of the human body and its injuries. Every time we experience a trauma, undergo an inflammatory process or even suffer from poor posture, the body adapts, restricting the fascial layers as well as the range of motion of the involved joints. 

There may be an overall range of free movement, but at a joint or segmental level, irregular biomechanics are being set up by the restrictions. They frequently act like layers of onion; as one set of adhesions is removed, we slowly begin to lose our physiological adaptive capacity. We further lose our flexibility and spontaneity of motion, which sets us up for trauma, pain or restriction of motion.

These adhesions pull us out of a three-dimensional orientation with gravity. As a muscle tendon begins to stretch and encounters an adhesion, the muscle contracts to prevent any further stretching and to protect the area involved. The result is that the muscles involved are not as strong and the range of motion is limited in the involved joint. Adhesions can affect areas that are quite small, sometimes just a few muscle fibers, and other times there can be a number of areas like that scattered throughout a muscle group. If adhesions prevent a muscle from reaching proper extension, the increased stress on the tendons can contribute to tendinitis.

An example of these scar tissue is to consider a tough piece of meat. Typically one needs to pound the meat or tenderize it, to break down the adhesions. Even then the meat is very tough to chew and mostly used in a stew. This is in comparison to a piece of veal which is nice and tender and absent any scar tissue. One of the best parts of this technique is that active people get better faster. It is really a long-term project with the exception of major tears and other injuries people. 

I was first introduced to this technique in 2005 shortly after relocating to the Bay Area of California. I called on a fellow Chiropractic Neurologist to give me a tuneup spinal adjustment. He introduced me to Neuromuscular Reeducation and I underwent several treatment sessions for my old rugby and football injuries. I had never let any injuries or restrictions prevent me from doing any activities that I wanted to do. However I could see in a short period of time that I was definitely looser. I signed up for the weekend course where participants worked hands-on each other. At the end of this weekend chronic nagging lower back discomfort that I had experienced for probably 20 years was gone. My flexibility was improved, my legs looser, I ran faster and was able to lift more weights as when I was much younger.

I am currently involved with a lot of running and continue to lift weights. I can feel when my knees start to act up that I need to do more work on my thigh muscles, a.k.a. quadriceps. I have incorporated this technique into my chiropractic neurology practice and fine that patients get better much faster. I've yet to meet a person that did not have improved range of motion and decreased pain perception in only one treatment.