Chronic pain of any kind is debilitating. It drains you of energy and impacts the quality of your life in every area, preventing you from being your best at home, at work, and at play.
The neck is a relatively delicate structure more prone to problems and often the cause of other seemingly unrelated issues from sleep quality to fatigue to inflammation to even anxiety.
A study in the journal Surgical Technology International showed:
- While sitting or standing straight your head weighs 10 to 12 pounds
- If you lean 15 degrees forward the weight of your head feels more like 27 lbs.
- At a 30 degree tilt the effective weight is 40 lbs.
- And a 45 degree angle makes it feel like 49 lbs.
Our modern life is filled with activities like computer work, phone and tablet use that puts tremendous strain on our necks. But, what does that strain do and why should you do everything you can to resolve it?
Here’s a post I made: 3 Reasons Your Problem is in Your Neck
My Story of Chronic Neck Pain
Chronic neck pain was actually the original stimulus that eventually led me to chiropractic. I was in a head on collision at age 18 and my head struck and broke the windshield. After a visit to the ER and more than 30 stitches I thought I was good to go. After all, at age 18 you feel invincible.
The real problems emerged more than 6 months later. I began experiencing daily neck and back pain, headaches, fatigue, and sleep challenges. I tried medication and physical therapy but nothing worked…not until a family friend suggested the unknown to me discipline of chiropractic.
The Urgency of Resolving Chronic Neck Pain
I understand the desire and urgency of resolving any pain. After all, who wants to experience pain? What we too often fail to appreciate is that pain is one of the languages that the body speaks. The tendency is to want to shut down the pain at any cost. Hence, the ever growing popularity of medication. That’s what spurned the opioid crisis.
So, what is the body saying when it speaks the language of pain?
The body could be saying a lot of things. Anytime there is tissue damage like a burn, a laceration, or even a fracture there is the message of pain to tell us to limit our activity so as not to worsen the injury.
But, that’s not what’s going on with chronic neck pain. Any injury or tissue damage has long ago healed if there was trauma. The pain persists. What’s the message?
Pain is a bit like a small child tugging on their parent’s pant leg, trying to get their attention. Chronic pain is your body’s attempt to get your attention to tell you something is out of balance and it is having difficulty bringing you back into balance.
Let’s explore a bit more about why you should be paying close attention and why there should be urgency!
The 5 Keys
Even if your chronic neck pain isn’t that bad, even if it really isn’t interfering with your ability to participate in life there should be urgency in seeking resolution of your pain. So, let’s look at those 5 keys.
Key #1: Pain indicates imbalance. If you are experiencing chronic pain it is a sign your body is out of balance and is having a difficult time getting back in balance. Your body is continually striving to maintain balance or homeostasis in its physiology, chemistry, hormones, and physical structure.
Neck pain tends to point more toward the structural imbalance but that imbalance will have a domino effect on neurology and physiology. You read earlier about the tremendous stress on the neck if your head is even a few degrees forward.
Key #2: Joint Integrity. With imbalance in your structure, especially if your head is forward there is a magnification and uneven distribution of stresses to the small joints of the spine. This causes a progressive breakdown of these joints that we call degenerative arthritis or DJD. This is irreversible and doesn’t necessarily cause pain until there is significant wearing of the joints.
Not only does arthritis cause pain but it creates a cycle of more and more wear and tear since the imbalance only worsens with the advancing degeneration.
Key #3: Joint Mobility. If you have chronic neck pain have you noticed a progressive restricting in moving your head in certain directions? Let’s check it out. For each of the below movements assess if you feel any restriction, tension, tightness or pain:
- Turn your head as far as you can to the right. Can you see behind your shoulder? Notice any restriction, tension, tightness or pain.
- Turn your head as far as you can to the left. Can you see behind your shoulder? Notice any restriction, tension, tightness or pain.
- Bend your head backwards. Can you see the ceiling right above your head?
- Notice any restriction, tension, tightness or pain.
- With your head bent back, turn to the right and left. Do you experience any tension, tightness, or pain?
- Bend your neck forward looking at the floor. Do you experience any tension, tightness, or pain?
Any significant tightness, tension, or pain in any of those directions is an indication of restricted cervical spine joints.
Key #4: Structural Balance. Your brain seeks balance in many ways – chemically, physiologically, neurologically and structurally. Any imbalance in your head and neck being level is a sign of underlying structural and neurological imbalance. If you can have someone take the following pictures for you:
Standing evenly on both feet, take a breath in, breathe out, and fully relax.
- Take a picture from the side with at least the shoulders, neck and head in view. Even better to have a full body view. Is the middle of your ear in front of the center of your shoulder?
Every inch your ear is in front of your shoulder is effectively adding another head to the weight your neck is supporting.
- Take a picture from the front of your head with your eyes and ear lobes in sight. Is the corner of one eye or is one ear lobe higher or lower than the other side?
Structural imbalance puts tremendous strain on your joints, on the muscles attempting to restore balance, and on your brain attempting to maintain balance. This impacts the effectiveness of your nervous system as well as the muscles and joints of the neck.
Key #5: Autonomic Nervous System. Your ANS is the control system for all the below conscious functions of your body that support health and well-being. Heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, sleep, immune function, healing and recovery are all controlled by the ANS. Neck pain as I’ve stated is an indication of imbalance that is likely putting tension on the brain stem and causing an imbalance in the Autonomic Nervous System.
When it said that 90% of all illness and disease is stress related it is because of the imbalances in the ANS.
You might be able to tolerate your chronic neck pain. Perhaps you’ve been able to manage the pain with medication. The real impact of your chronic neck pain has little to do with the pain and all to do with the underlying imbalances and the impact on your joints and nervous system.
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