With the stress of modern day living and the increase in hours we spend sitting in our day-to-day lives, neck pain has become one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders, with 40-70% of us experiencing it at some point in time.
Are you experiencing:
Stiffness and/or pain moving your head?
Muscle tightness?
Muscle spasms?
Tight and sore shoulders?
Unexplained headaches?
Neck pain and pain down the arm?
There are many possible causes of neck pain, which is why a detailed comprehensive exam is required before we can treat you. It’s important that we rule out any physical trauma or underlaying pathology, it is very unlikely but if you are to fall into one of those two categories, we would need to refer you. However, the majority of neck pain is caused by structural imbalances and mechanical issues of the spine; something we specialise in and can help with.
Posture is a key indication of your structural health. If your posture is deviated from normal, then your spine is also deviated from the normal healthy position. This places significant pressure on your joints, muscles, bones, discs and nerves.
If we look at this diagram, at point 1 a bone goes forward causing the body above that point to lean forward.
Now off balance, the body compensates at point 2 by leaning back to counterbalance the forward bone. This pulls the bones into extension, straining the muscles between the shoulder blades causing pain.
When the bone at point 3 is moved further forward and causes more pain, the body will compensate and pull another bone forward (point 4) to relieve pressure below. This causes the head and neck to fall forward and the shoulders to roll forward.
Point 5 shows how the body will compensate by pulling the head up into extension. This will become the main point of complaint, the compensation area which is felt the most. It could be anything from pain, stiffness, headaches, loss of balance and much more.
This only shows a simple example of three compensations. In reality after the years of stress and strain the average body goes through, it is a lot more complicated. But you can see why if you focus on the area of complaint, you’ll never truly fix the cause and get long-term results. Our spine has no muscle or combinations of muscles that can pull the bones backwards. This is why you can feel the bumpy bits of your spine; it’s only cover with skin. As a result, our bodies go through this layering of compensations for every forwards bone created that we cannot ourselves self-correct. Over time our posture worsens and our spine changes shape.
Not only does abnormal posture affect the neck but it has been associated with the development and progression of many spinal conditions and injuries including increased muscle activity and disc injury, scoliosis, work lifting injuries, sports injuries, back pain, headaches, carpal tunnel symptoms, shoulder and ankle injuries as well as many other conditions. Improving your posture, and by that I correcting the forward bones and re-establishing the original alignment is the only true way to correct and fix the underlaying cause.