Neck pain is a highly common condition in the office of a chiropractor. Individuals of all ages, genders, and ethnicities suffer from neck pain. Typically, neck pain is noticed as a dull, achy feeling, but can present as a sharp, stabbing pain when bad enough. The pain can also radiate, or travel, into the shoulders and arms. If you have experienced neck pain at any time, then you know it is not fun. It can drastically affect your life by not only causing that nagging pain, but also limit your ability to move your head. Things as simple as checking your blind spot while driving becomes a seriously limited task, which not only endangers you, but others on the road, too!

Where does neck pain come from? Maybe you “slept wrong” and woke up with neck pain. Maybe you had a whiplash injury from a car accident or sports injury. Maybe you sit at a desk all day and as the day goes on, your neck pain gets more and more aggravating. Regardless of what you may think is causing the pain, as a chiropractor, we have found the true cause of it. You have probably never heard this explanation before, so let me explain.

Neck pain, even if it is at the bottom of your neck, all comes from a misalignment at the top of the neck. When the atlas (top bone in your neck) misaligns, it causes the head to shift off center. Something called the Righting Reflex forces your spine to compensate to balance the head. These compensations start in the neck. Now that the neck is compensated, or not in its correct position, muscles on one side must work harder than the other, meaning one side is contracted, while the other is stretched. When a muscle stretches abnormally, the brain sends signals to the muscle to contract to protect it. This creates the neck pain that you are experiencing. If this phenomenon lasts for an extended period of time, it can put pressure on nerves going into your shoulders, into your arms, and all the way down to your fingers, producing pain, numbness, and/or tingling in these areas.

Getting to the cause of your neck pain is exactly what I do as a chiropractor. Through very specific chiropractic X-rays, I can determine if and exactly how the atlas is misaligned. Once we start correcting the misalignment, the head will balance, and the neck will start to move back to its normal position. Thus, the muscles balance and allows the neck pain to go away for good.