Neck Pain Treatment in Toronto
Neck pain can develop from muscle and joint strain, prolonged sitting, poor posture, injuries or age-related changes in the cervical spine. Symptoms may include stiffness, restricted neck movement, muscle tension and pain that can extend into the shoulder or upper back.
Have you ever thought of the expression that something or someone is “a pain in the neck”? Interesting expression! It refers to the body’s reaction to emotional stress and how the muscles tighten up.
Add to this sitting all day looking at a computer screen or looking down at your phone for hours at a time, and you certainly have a recipe for “a pain in the neck”!
With the shift from in-person to online learning, teaching, and work, people’s musculoskeletal health has been seriously affected as we spend more time using electronic devices.
At My Toronto Chiropractor Clinic in Midtown Toronto, Dr. Leslie Horowitz examines patients with neck pain to help determine the likely source of their symptoms and whether chiropractic treatment is appropriate. Treatment is based on your examination findings and may include spinal manipulation or mobilization, PulStar® computerized spinal mobilization, soft-tissue therapy, therapeutic modalities, stretching, exercise and ergonomic advice.
Spine Areas that Lead to Neck Pain
- Bones (vertebrae that give the spine its shape and strength)
- Discs (that are like jelly donuts between bones that absorb shock)
- Ligaments (that join bones together)
- Tendons (that are the extensions of muscles that attach to bones)
- Joints (where one bone meets another to allow movement in all directions)
- Nerves (that exit between each vertebra and control motor and sensory function)
There are pairs of nerves that exit from between each vertebra, and these nerves carry both motor supply to the muscles/organs as well as sensory information gathered from the skin and other sensory organs in the above-mentioned tissues.
For your muscles and organs to function optimally, no interference can compress the nerves that exit from the spine.
How Common is Neck Pain?
- Neck pain is one of the top causes of disability, reduced quality of life, and lost time from work.
- Occurs most commonly during the working years (ages 45–74) but can also affect children.
- It is one of the most reported musculoskeletal disorders.
- Estimated to occur in 20–50% of adults and as high as 48–78% of college students.
- Can make driving more dangerous if you cannot turn your neck adequately to check your blind spot.
- Is particularly high in office workers.
- Often persists and recurs.
- Women are thought to suffer more commonly than men.
- Negatively affects work productivity.
- Research shows that people who experience significant whiplash injuries develop spinal degeneration/arthritis in the neck more quickly.
What Causes Neck Pain?
There are multiple causes of neck pain. Some of these include:
- History of whiplash injury (from a car accident, slips or falls)
- Sports injuries involving impact, falls and extreme neck positions
- Exercise injuries such as using exercise equipment improperly or lifting weights that are too heavy
- Lack of exercise and brisk walking
- Slips and falls
- Emotional stress, bad dreams, anxiety-producing thoughts, and core beliefs that go unchallenged
- Difficulty feeling and/or expressing sadness, anger, and grief
- Sleeping in places (such as a bus) and in awkward positions
- An unsupportive pillow or sleeping on your stomach
- Poor posture, such as wedging a phone between your shoulder and neck
- Sitting at a computer for hours each day with poor ergonomic positioning of the computer screen, desk or chair
- Repetitive typing at work or school
- Reading or looking down at a phone or studying notes for many hours at a time
- A cold breeze or a fan blowing on the neck or scrunching the shoulders up to the neck in the wintertime
- Making an abrupt or awkward neck turn or being frightened by a sudden noise
- Having a cold or allergies and sneezing and coughing a lot
- Smoking
- Carrying of heavy goods orwearing of heavy loads in the neck region
- A more sedentary lifestyle
How Are Neck Pain and Spinal Osteoarthritis Related?
Neck pain is often related to Spinal osteoarthritis. Arthritis is a “wear and tear” disease that happens gradually over time and impairs our ability to move and be functional. While we may not always feel pain when arthritis is present in the spine, we may experience:
- Stiffness
- Motion restriction
- Referred pain
Your spine protects your spinal cord (the nerves that run through the center of your spinal bones). The spine allows us to bear weight, to be upright and mobile.
When spinal joints lose their normal joint alignment and their range of motion, arthritis is likely to worsen.
Despite neck pain being so common, there has not been much research into its causes and risk factors.
If your neck range of motion is so restricted that you cannot look over your shoulder to see your blind spot when driving, then you may be suffering from the effects of spinal osteoarthritis. As a result, the quality and safety of your life may be at risk. This is true even if you do not experience neck pain.
Following each episode of neck pain or spasm, additional tissue damage may be left behind around the spinal joints, their muscles, and associated tissues.
Spinal degeneration can lead to spinal stenosis (narrowing of the central spinal canal), myelopathy (pressure on the central nervous system), radiculopathy (pressure on individual nerves exiting the spine), and spondylolisthesis.
- Degenerative changes in the cervical spine are common in people who seek care for their neck pain.
- While not everyone with spinal degeneration will experience pain, everyone with spinal degeneration in the neck will have increasingly more difficulty in moving their neck as time goes on.
- Joint restriction, degeneration, and tissue changes in the spine are the cause of Cervicogenic headaches as well as tension and migraine headaches
- Spine degeneration in the neck can lead to vertigo, balance problems and can increase the risk of falling
Damage Due to Spinal Arthritis
- Low-grade inflammation with potential to create degenerative changes
- Tissue damage around nerves, spinal facet joints, and muscles due to inflammation
- Joint damage after sustained mechanical loads
- Joint cartilage damage and synovial fluid changes
- Loss of range of motion in the joints
- Loss of overall range of motion in your neck or back
- Postural alterations in your spine
- Sensitization of pain receptors and nerves, which can lead to chronic pain
- Inability for joints to maintain and repair cartilage with age
How Chiropractic Care May Help Neck Pain and Spinal Degeneration
How does a healthy joint go from moving well to being arthritic and stiff? This is an important question.
Most health professionals recognize that good posture and staying physically active are important for good health. While these are particularly important to maintain throughout one’s lifetime, chiropractors are unique in that they also focus on preserving:
- A person’s ability to maximize their ability to move—e.g., to bend or rotate their neck.
- Segmental spinal motions of each vertebral joint in your spine
- Full range of motion of various bones in the hands, arms, feet, and legs
One promising theory (that has not yet been confirmed in research at this time) is that by keeping spinal segments moving well, degenerative changes in the spine can be slowed down or altered.
It is important to have spinal examinations on a yearly basis and as early as possible following things such as car accidents and back pain episodes.
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