Neck Pain Conditions & Treatment
Diseases, a one-time injury or small injuries that happen on a regular basis can cause your neck to hurt. If you need assistance of a medical nature due to neck pain, consult with a Board Certified Pain Doctor at Pain Treatment Specialists.
Neck Pain Overview
Neck pain can be terrible because it affects neck movements. Sometimes the pain is due to a stiff neck caused by a bad pillow or a wrong sleeping posture. This sort of pain is so severe that the victim cannot turn their neck. Luckily, it can disappear in a few days without treatment. When neck pain is due to a medical condition, however, it affects one or more components of the cervical spine. The cervical spine consists of 7 vertebrae, muscles, nerves, joints and discs.
Regardless of where the pain originates from, you can trust the spine specialists at the VIP Centers. They can locate the exact area of your cervical spine that is hurting and come up with a customized, non-surgical treatment plan that will be helpful. They are trained orthopedics and pain management doctors who use various techniques to reduce or end neck pain. To get in touch with them, feel free to make your first call.
neck pain symptoms
How to tell you have neck pain?
The neck (cervical spine) supports your head and attaches it to the body. It is an intricate body part that can hurt for different reasons. Neck pain tends to affect other areas of the body too, explaining why it must be addressed as soon as possible. It is usually accompanied by certain symptoms, including the following:
- Burning
- Stiffness
- Tightness
- Shooting pain
- Pressure
- Swallowing difficulties
- Swelling
- Pain that travels to other body parts including the shoulder, arm and hand
- Stabbing ache.
Sometimes spinal nerves get pinched and can trigger pain, tingling, weakness and numbness in hands, arms and shoulders. And if the nerve is so pinched or compressed, the same symptoms can as well be felt in legs. In severe situations, patients can lose their bladder or bowel control, develop coordination problems and become extremely weak. If you feel neck pain plus these kinds of symptoms, you are an emergency case. Call a pain management doctor immediately and go direct to a good clinic.
Your doctor will find out whether the loss of bladder or bowel control as well as loss of coordination is as a result of neck pain or another health problem. He or she must first try to identify and distinguish the kind, severity, frequency and location of your neck pain. After this, they will come up with a cervical spine treatment program that can be fruitful.
Causes of Neck Pain
Several things can lead to cervical spine ache. Diseases, a one-time injury or small injuries that happen on a regular basis can cause your neck to hurt. Sprains and strains tend to be the most prevalent causes of neck discomfort.
Acute neck pain
This is the type of pain that tends to end in a few days or weeks. Usually, it happens due to whiplash auto accidents. A whiplash accident is the one that happens when the cervical spine and head are forced to move backward and then forward in a sudden manner. Whiplash accidents expose the neck components to extremely quick, unnatural movements and a lot of stress. Due to these forceful movements, neck muscles and ligaments become injured. They then react by contracting and tightening, resulting in muscle fatigue, pain and stiffness.
Another cause of acute neck pain is trauma during sports. If a sports person encounters a bad injury while playing, his or her neck muscles or ligaments can develop an injury. This can be a muscle strain or a ligament sprain, and both can be extremely painful. Even if you don’t encounter a single serious sports accident, you will be subjected to small injuries on a regular basis. These injuries can gradually lead to wear and tear on your neck muscles and ligaments. The result is pain and discomfort. Neck pain due to sporting activities tends to worsen when activity is increased.
Additionally, all activities that entail prolonged or repeated neck movements can cause a muscle injury or strain, ligament injury or sprain and muscle spasm. Pain management specialists manage muscle strains and ligament sprains with anti-inflammatory drugs and doses of rest.
If your head rests in a position that stresses your neck muscles too much, pain can be felt right after waking up. If you don’t sleep on your side or back, chances are that you have had a stiff neck after waking up in the morning. It mostly affects people who sleep in their stomachs, as this sleeping position causes the neck to fall into an uncomfortable posture. A bad pillow can also trigger neck pain; so, select a pill that is not too high or too low to avoid neck and back pain.
Finally, a bad posture caused by prolonged sitting with your head and shoulders bent forward in front of your computer machine can lead to neck pain. When you project your head forward to read what is on your computer screen, you put considerable strain on your neck muscles. This can lead to chronic headaches and neck pain.
Chronic Neck Pain
Pinched nerve
A strain in a neck muscle
Degenerative disc disease
These spinal discs consist of a flexible or elastic structure that is made of a fibrocartilage tissue. So when the discs lose their ability to protect your neck from movements, they weaken over time and lose their level of flexibility, elasticity and the ability to absorb shock. As a result, they become thinner, extremely stiff and rigid. Due to this disc state, your neck cannot move in a fluid manner. A degenerative disc disease can change one or more discs in your cervical spine in terms of shape and strength.
Eventually, a bulging disc or a herniated disc results, and this is when some of its material press on a nerve root. This causes terrible pain, numbness and tingling. These symptoms can travel down your arm.
Osteoarthritis or cervical spondylosis
Cervical spinal stenosis
Herniated disc
Neck Pain Treatment
Cervical epidural steroid injection
As the name suggests, this is an injection that is given to the epidural space of your spine and it involves a steroid. The specific spinal space consisting of irritated nerves is the epidural space. This injection is given to minimize pain and inflammation in your neck, arms, and shoulders. People who receive these shots normally have arthritis, spinal stenosis, and/or herniated discs that exert pressure on their nerves, causing pain, swelling, inflammation, and discomfort. When a cervical epidural steroid injection is provided, these symptoms can disappear.
Cervical facet block (medial branch block) injection
This is a good spinal treatment for neck pain as it is less invasive and quick. It is normally picked for sufferers of arthritis. The doctor targets certain facet joints in your cervical spine and injects them with a tiny amount of local anesthetic drug and steroid medicine. A pain management expert must use a fluoroscopic guide for proper imaging and after the shot, the facet joint is numbed and the pain is blocked. About one or two cervical facet block injections are enough in most cases.
Trigger point injections
Trigger points are alternatively called sensitive areas. They are usually found deep inside a connective tissue or muscle and ache when touched or overused. They appear in the form of knots or bands that occur when muscles are too contracted and can’t relax. There are trigger points in your shoulders and head too that can cause a lot of pain. To stop them from aching, these trigger points are deactivated with trigger point injections.
They entail a procedure where a tiny needle is inserted into a trigger point so as to deposit a local anesthetic drug and corticosteroid drug. Trigger point injections don’t have side effects or risks. They simply make the area inactive and pain free. A short treatment course will provide longer term pain relief. As the procedure is done in an outpatient basis, it takes a short period even when several areas must be treated.
How can a doctor diagnose neck pain?
If you need assistance of a medical nature due to neck pain, consult with a Board Certified Pain Doctor. An expert physician will examine your neck and carefully identify the root cause of pain. Here at Pain Treatment Specialists, we will create a customized treatment plan with zero down-time, and guide you towards full recovery. Whether the cause of pain is within a muscle ligament, joint or nerve, at Pain Treatment Specialists we have Ivy League trained physicians available at all times to properly identify your pain and treat it in the safest way possible.
How can a doctor diagnose neck pain?
If you need assistance of a medical nature due to neck pain, consult with a Board Certified Pain Doctor. An expert physician will examine your neck and carefully identify the root cause of pain. Here at Pain Treatment Specialists, we will create a customized treatment plan with zero down-time, and guide you towards full recovery. Whether the cause of pain is within a muscle ligament, joint or nerve, at Pain Treatment Specialists we have Ivy League trained physicians available at all times to properly identify your pain and treat it in the safest way possible.