Why Do We Get Neck Pain

Do you ever remember seeing someone in a neck brace? Do you remember thinking, "I wonder how much pain you would have to actually use one of those?" Last week I had a patient come to my San Diego Chiropractic office because of neck pain. Her neck pain was bad enough that she wore a neck brace. She said that she had a long history of neck pain but that this current episode of neck pain was the worst she ever felt and it began after she spent a few hours watching her boyfriend fly his stunt kite at the beach.

In this patients' estimation, she had no idea what possibly could have caused this painful episode.

Those of you who have suffered with neck pain know what she is going through.

After a neck injury that has not been properly treated, future flair ups can be common. These flair ups of neck pain can come with little or no obvious provocation.

In most cases of neck pain without a significant discernible injurious event, the cause of a painful episode lies in an accumulation of old injuries like car accidents and falls combined with ongoing daily postural stress.

When your neck is exposed to a combination of specific old injuries and ongoing postural stress, seemingly new injuries to the same area can be the result of something as mundane as an awkward sleeping position or a prolonged fixed position of the neck that might occur with watching TV or working on the computer.

Because this type of flair up is so common, "new injuries" that occur with non stressful events are not new injuries at all but aggravations of old injuries. I like to use the analogy of the straws on the camels back for these kinds of episodes.

In closing, if this patient had hurt her neck watching her boyfriend fly a kite at the beach and she had no other history of neck pain or injury, I would be surprised. With this patients' history, however, the onset of this episode of neck pain did not surprise me at all.

There is an old saying, "The body never forgets".