Waking Up with Neck Pain
What happens frequently is someone will wake up in the morning and tell me that they can’t turn their head to the right. They’re having some pain that’s radiating down into their arm or shoulders, and they can’t think of how it would’ve happened. Nothing happened before. It just came out of nowhere. Then, as a week or two went on, it started to develop into neck pain, stiffness, and headaches.
What May Be Happening in the Spine
Hi, I’m Dr. Mark from Higher Health Chiropractic, and I frequently come across someone who comes into my office with neck pain. What has happened is that a subluxation in the spine—a misalignment of one of these vertebrae that has been there for a very long time—has reached a breaking point where it can no longer adapt to the stress, even to sleeping. So sleeping in that wrong position strained that joint enough where it’s like, “We can’t handle this anymore. Something needs to change.”
What could be happening as a result of that subluxation is these discs can wear out, creating tension. These facet joints here get swollen, and they start to tighten those muscles around there to protect that joint. If that is not corrected, it can lead to further irritation to this nerve root. This nerve root is going to the fingers, the hand, and different organs in the body.
How We Assess It
The next step in our office is a neurological assessment to see if that subluxation is causing neurological interference. Then we take some X-rays of the spine to see exactly what’s going on, whether that person has lost some curvature in their spine, and whether these joint spaces have gotten smaller. If that’s the case, then we know that subluxation is present, and it’s something that we can help you with, and you’ll get better.
The Next Step
The next step would be to go to our website. You can schedule online or simply give us a call and make an appointment, and we can help you.
