Neck pain, whether caused by poor posture, work demands, or everyday wear and tear, can significantly impact your daily life. At Wigmore Chiropractic Care in Gillingham, our chiropractors focus on providing targeted neck pain treatment for neck discomfort, muscle tension, and joint dysfunction. Our team of chiropractors uses a comprehensive approach that may include gentle chiropractic adjustments to restore proper spinal alignment and improve joint function. This approach can effectively alleviate pain and promote better mobility in your neck.
Get in touch with us today to schedule a consultation with our experienced team to explore how chiropractic care can help you manage your neck pain and regain a pain-free range of motion.
A Guide To Neck Pain
Neck pain is more common than many people realise and can be painful, and also surprisingly debilitating. Most episodes of neck pain start suddenly, and get better quickly by themselves.
You may experience other symptoms that seem associated with the neck pain, such as arm or shoulder pain, or headaches.
Neck pain can affect your day-to-day activities such as:
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Cleaning the house
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Ironing
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Washing or combing your hair
And it may feel worse when you do activities like:
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Sitting behind the computer
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Being on your phone or reading a book
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On checking your blind spot when you’re driving, you turn your whole body
Sometimes, you know what caused the pain, for instance when you had a traumatic incident like a road traffic accident. But many times, it starts gradually and may be due to a poor posture or uncomfortable set up at work.
If the pain doesn’t ease off after a couple of days, or it starts to worsen, it’s a good idea to seek professional advice. Early treatment can help you get better more quickly.
A Bit About Your Neck
Your neck is part of the spine. It is part of this strong, solid column that serves to protect your nervous system and allows for plenty of movement to occur.
It is made of vertebrae which are stacked on top of each other and held together by soft cushions called discs, which act like shock absorbers. At the back of the vertebrae are small joints on either side that create stability and allow for movement of the spine.
The spine is held together by strong ligaments which are surrounded by powerful muscles for support. Altogether, this results in your spine being a strong structure that is not easily damaged.
Simple Neck Pain
There are different types of neck pain. Most people experience a ‘simple’ or ‘mechanical’ neck pain. This means that the pain is not associated with an underlying condition and that there are no trapped nerves. Often, if you do an x-ray or a scan, there is no tissue damage visible. But the muscles, ligaments or joints in your neck may be stiff and sore.
Simple neck pain is often caused by poor posture or tension in the neck and shoulders. Poor posture doesn’t just happen during the day, but can also happen when you move during the night and lose your pillow, and end up in an awkward position.
You may feel the pain on one side or both sides of the neck, across the shoulder, or in the base of the skull. It can be sharp or dull in nature, or sometimes just feels like a stiffness and ache.
Stress or worry often increase the tension on the neck and can make an existing neck problem worse, or over time even cause neck and shoulder pain because it affects how you hold yourself. It definitely slows down the natural recovery process of your neck pain.
Simple neck pain is quite common, and you might not be able to pin point why it started or what caused it. It can be very uncomfortable and painful, as the tissues and structures of the neck are susceptible to pain, but most of the time there is no serious underlying cause for your pain.
Seeing a qualified health care professional such as a chiropractor can be helpful as they have experience in diagnosing various neck conditions and help treat the neck and spine. But if they suspect an underlying condition, they will also do a referral or recommend further investigations.
If you’re finding it hard to cope or want to speed up your recovery, chiropractic treatment can help with that.
Whiplash After An Accident
If your neck pain started after trauma, you may experience a whiplash-associated neck pain. We often think of road traffic accidents giving rise to whiplash, but it may also be caused by a sports injury or a fall.
When trauma results in neck pain, you may not feel the pain at first as your body is in shock. It is quite common for the neck pain to start a few hours or even a few days after the incident.
Often, the soft tissues are injured in a whiplash disorder and there is a lot of inflammation. The swelling associated with inflammation can cause a lot of pain, and may make the pain seem worse than the injury really is. Taking measures to reduce the inflammation can often help to reveal the real injury that occurred.
Most whiplash injuries recover in 6-8 weeks. If you find that the pain is persistent or getting worse, it is worth seeking professional advice.
Getting Older
As you get older, wear and tear changes occur in your body, including your neck. Some of the changes that happen is that the shock-absorbing pads in between your vertebrae become less spongy, resulting in stiffness.
There can be changes on other joints, and in your ligaments too, which add to the stiffness. Most of the time, the wear and tear changes on your spine will only result in stiffness. It also may make you more susceptible to feeling achy after doing too much. But it doesn’t need to cause you pain, except when you move in a way that your body doesn’t allow you to move anymore.
When you keep moving and stay mobile you can slow down the wear and tear process and remain relatively pain free as you get older. If you find that you’re stiff after you’ve been sat down for a while, or on getting up in the morning, you may want to do some exercises to move your neck and spine in order to keep it mobile and reduce that stiffness.
When The Nerves Get Involved
Occasionally, the problems in your neck may lead to pain in your arm, and can spread all the way down to your fingers. You may experience pins and needles, tingling, numbness or an ache in the arm.
Again, if this pain resolves quickly by itself, it isn’t something to worry about. However, if it keeps coming back, is becoming more persistent or gets worse, it is important to see a health care professional to find out if it is a nerve that is causing your symptoms.
How The Consultation Works
When you see the chiropractor, they will take a full history of your problem as well as some general medical history. Then, the chiropractor will examine your neck and body before telling you what they found and what they can do, and what you can expect from the treatment.
This is necessary in order to be able to make a correct diagnosis and treat your condition the right way. Sometimes, it’s necessary to refer for x-rays or MRI scans, or even blood tests.
Chiropractic Treatment
Chiropractors are known for doing manual treatments like spinal manipulation to move stiff or restricted joints. There are different ways of achieving spinal manipulation and it may be that the chiropractor feels that with your condition, you would benefit from different techniques than the ones you’ve experienced or seen before.
Other ways the chiropractor loosens up stiff or restricted joints is by using mobilisation. To address muscle spasm or tightness, there are various muscle release techniques, and you may be given stretches to do at home, or strengthening exercises to re-balance the muscles in your body.
The chiropractor may also give you advice on how you can use your lifestyle to help recovery and prevent future episodes of neck pain. If you are in a lot of pain, the chiropractor may send you to your GP for prescribed pain medication to help the recovery process.
Chiropractors support the most effective approach for your individual situation and will write to your GP if they feel chiropractic either can’t help with your problem, or chiropractic alone isn’t enough to help with your problem.
Overall, chiropractic can help you stay mobile and more active, and reduce the risk of future episodes of neck pain.