Spine Conditions: Neck Pain

Diagnosing Your Neck Pain

It is important to note that these are most of the common causes of neck pain:

1. 1. Wear and tear. The vertebrae and discs within the neck, with age, may begin to wear down. As this occurs, chronic or persistent pain in the neck can be a result. This may also cause: inflammation, pinched nerves, cervical fractures, arthritis and cervical disc degeneration.
   2. Sleeping position. How you sleep at night, along with the number of pillow you may use and the firmness of your mattress can affect the way your shoulders, back and neck feel in the morning. Sleeping with lack of support for your head or neck can amount to you waking with a sore neck.
   3. General neck pain. Not always is it easy to identify the exact cause of neck pain. A minor sprain or tear to the muscle tissue can sometimes be the reasoning for you to be experiencing neck pain without an obvious cause. This can sometimes be a result from poor posture or if you are holding your neck out of alignment for extended periods of time. All of this can result in strain to the muscles in your neck.
   4. Anxiety and stress. People can often refer to holding tension within their neck and back and a lot of the time this pain can be a cause of excess strain from stress, as it can cause the muscles to tighten.
   5. Sudden-onset or acute torticollis. When the head becomes twisted to one side it is referred to as the medical condition: torticollis. The cause of this is not always known. Doctors believe that reasoning for this is because of minor ligaments or muscle sprains in the neck. However, the neck being exposed to cold temperatures for long periods of time can also be a cause of this. Torticollis can occur mostly overnight, meaning that the symptoms will not happen beforehand, but when waking up the individual may not be able to move their neck. In most cases, however, the pain will go away after a few days and natural movement should return. Although torticollis can be a symptom of more severe health issues, such as tumors, infections and side effects from taking medication.
   6. Brachial plexus injury. The brachial plexus is the collection of nerves that connect the spinal cord in the neck to the hands (American Society for Surgery of the Hand). Therefore if a neck injury does occur and affects the brachial plexus, this may result in pain to occur within the hand as well.
   7. Whiplash. Whiplash is a neck injury that occurs after the head moves out of alignment and then back into it very quickly. Whiplash can occur anywhere beyond car accidents. These being during sporting activities or anywhere else where sudden movement occurs.
   8. Cervical radiculopathy. Oftenly referred to as a pinched nerve, cervical radiculopathy can occur when there is irritation of the nerves within the spinal cord creates pain that radiates down the neck and into the arm. The primary symptoms of this are as follows: numbness in the arms, pins and needles in the arms and pain or weakness in part of the arms. Causes of cervical radiculopathy can be cervical spondylosis *neck arthritis) and a prolapsed disc.
   9. Rare causes. Less common causes of neck can be: rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, serious injury, damage to the nerves, vertebrae or spinal cord, infections and bone disorders.