There are a variety of reasons why you may have neck pain. It might be due to whiplash from a car accident or tech neck, neck pain caused by looking down at your phone for long periods. Regardless of why you are suffering from neck pain, let’s look at how chiropractic care may be able to help you.
A Proper Diagnosis
Neck pain affects up to twenty percent of the adult population at any given time, though they may have it for five minutes or suffer from a 5 out of 10 on the pain scale every minute of the day.
Don’t write off neck pain as being caused by a bad mattress or yet another day of sitting with poor posture if your attempts to correct it haven’t been able to resolve it. Neck pain could be due to injuries or systemic problems like arthritis or infections. In some cases, it is related to TMJ or muscle strain from carrying heavy loads in the wrong way. If you have back pain, it is possible that the degeneration of the spinal discs could be moving upward or merely causing you to strain the neck muscles more to compensate for the deterioration of your back.
Talk to one of the medical professionals at Akridge Chiropractic to learn why you have neck pain. This is essential to coming up with a solution to the problem. And it may give you an explanation for other sources of pain and strain, too. Don’t ignore tired neck muscles and painful cramps because they will eventually become painful all the time.
An Ergonomic Assessment
We’ve already mentioned how neck pain could be due to how you’re sitting or standing all day. A chiropractor can determine your neck pain’s root cause if it is due to your body positioning and then give you advice on how to correct it. It could be as simple as raising the height of your computer screen or getting a pillow with proper neck support. Or you may be advised to stop staring at the screen so much.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy is often prescribed for strengthening muscles that have become too weak through lack of use. And it is done to get back into proper shape after an injury. Your neck pain may be due to either of these things, and physical therapy may be one way to address it, just as core exercises are recommended for many back pain sufferers.
In other cases, patients are given chiropractic treatment. Chiropractic adjustments reduce misalignments and joint restrictions. This is non-invasive and non-addictive. That makes it a much better choice than the primary care doctor’s default choice of pain relievers and/or muscle relaxers. On the other hand, a chiropractor may prescribe prescription or over-the-counter medications to relieve symptoms like pain and inflammation temporarily while resolving the root cause of your problem. What you won’t get is an immediate referral for injections into the spine or even surgery. The odds are that you’ll need a series of chiropractic treatments, but you should make progress toward a pain-free life.
