Chiropractors have long been known as “back doctors.” Yet, they offer so much more. Studies show chiropractic care benefits asthma, ADD, neck pain, shoulder pain, carpal tunnel, scoliosis, and more.
The reason is because chiropractors are the “doctors of the spine” and it turns out that spinal health affects everything else.
Take chronic neck pain for example.
In chiropractic terms, the neck is also called the cervical spine.
If you reach around your head and touch the base of your skull, that’s where it starts. If you continue running your fingers down the back of your neck, you’ll feel the knobby vertebrae.
These vertebrae support your head and allow it to turn left and right, up and down. However, while the flexibility of your neck makes it easy to look over your shoulder and merge on the highway, for example, this flexibility also puts the neck at risk.
You know what it feels like to wake up with a “crick” in your neck. Usually, that type of pain will disappear after a few hours. However, other types of neck pain aren’t as easily solved.
Chronic neck pain is common after accidents, aging, diseases, and bad posture.
Imagine, if you’re in a car accident. Often, the impact forces your head forward and then it “whips” back. That’s where the term “whiplash” comes from and it can be super painful. The reason is that such a force can injure the muscles, joints, discs, ligaments, and even the roots of the nerves.
Even simply getting older can lead to degenerative problems like spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, and degenerative disc disease.
Then there are the stresses of everyday life which can cause you to tighten your neck muscles.
Poor posture which can push your neck forward and cause your head to stay jutted out. That puts pressure on your neck and spine.
As you can see, there are many causes for chronic neck pain. But what can you do about it?
3 Treatments for Chronic Neck Pain:
There are many ways to treat chronic neck pain including massage therapy, acupuncture, and chiropractic care. Your medical professional will likely recommend a specific treatment plan but let’s see how these can help.
Massage Therapy – The massage therapist will work on manipulating the muscles in your neck to loosen them. Depending on the extent of your neck pain, you may feel immediate relief or it may take additional sessions. Many people find massage therapy combined with chiropractic care offers long-lasting pain relief because the neck muscles are able to relax which improves the chiropractic treatment.
Acupuncture – This ancient Chinese practice uses tiny needles to place in strategic points throughout your body. These locations – or acupuncture points – are message centers in the body and when triggered, they can improve blood flow in the body which helps reduce pain.
Chiropractic Care – The neck or “cervical spine” is at the top of the spine and the whole point of chiropractic treatments is to take care of the spine. Which means it makes sense that chiropractic adjustments can reduce chronic neck pain. According to the American Chiropractic Association, multiple studies have found more than half the study participants have found relief for neck pain with chiropractic care.
Now that you know these three all-natural pain relief treatment options for chronic neck pain, which will you try? If you’re located near Doylestown, Pa., we invite you for a free consultation.
