Aches can be a real pain in the neck! Especially when they are in your neck or upper back. A tightness, achy pain or sharp pain in the neck or upper back can indicate multiple things. Some which you should be afraid of. This pain can limit our daily activities, decrease our sleep, decrease our energy, and cause stress to our bodies and loved ones. This means we’re not living life to the fullest. Not to mention it’s not pleasant to live with pain. Nobody should have to deal with it.

In our clinic, we see that there are a couple main causes to neck and upper back pain. The most basic is the muscles are pulled tight. Your nerves control the muscles, so when the nerves are irritated, the muscles will pull tight producing discomfort and eventual pain. These muscles can also pull your head forward. Forward head carriage increases the weight of your head by 10 pounds for every inch the skull has moved forward. This increase in weight can cause pain as well. Once the muscles are pulled tight, the structures (bones and discs) have excess pressure on them. This can cause discomfort also. But over the course of time, the discs degenerate, bulge and may herniate. The bones change by creating arthritis in the neck. Both disc problems and bone problems can produce pain in the individual as well. A lot of pain from a lot of different sources!

All these mechanisms listed above do have one thing in common! The initial problem began with the muscles being pulled tight. So what caused that? Well, over the course of someone’s life they may have experienced an accident or injury which causes damage to the spine. The weakest area of your spine is at the top; where the skull rests on the first bone (the atlas). As damage is done to the first bone, it can misalign placing pressure on the brainstem. The underlying problem is call an Atlas Subluxation. This pressure is what causes the muscles to pull tight, the head to move forward, and abnormal pressure is placed on the spine. The abnormal pressure is then what changes the disc and bones over the course of time.

So what do you do? At Connect 33 Chiropractic we specialize in locating, analyzing, and correcting this problem, the Atlas Subluxation. We take a three dimensional x-ray to see how the first bone is misaligned. Then our special analysis called NUCCA can determine the vector and magnitude of misalignment. Without any twisting or cracking, we can realign the top bone using a gentle adjustment. Most people barely even feel the procedure. Once we treat the Atlas Subluxation, the muscles immediately relax from side to side. The whole body will start to come into the proper alignment and your body starts to heal! Throughout the process of healing, your symptoms tend to improve.

So if you see someone cracking their neck, holding their neck in pain, or complaining about it; have them call our office at 630-541-8553 to schedule an examination and consultation to see if we can help. Getting help shouldn’t be a pain in the neck!