Have you ever wondered how your neck might be contributing to how you feel? Or as a practitioner – how your patient’s neck may be a factor in their health?
Strine & Hootman report, “In the US, back and neck problems are the second leading cause of disability and the leading cause of job‐related disability.” If you find yourself suffering with a neck-related issue, have you wondered what the cause of said issue may be?
One of the astronomical number of reasons for the inherent complexity of the upper neck/brain relationship is the overlapping of centers that receive pain-type signals from our face, head, jaw, and neck. What that means is that regardless of the source, pain may be experienced in any or all of those four regions. Ciancaglini, et al. report that “there is a significant association between neck pain and the temporomandibular symptomatology… the most relevant relationship is with facial and jaw pain, according to recent neurophysiologic studies on pain mechanism.”
Blau, et al. performed a study in which 32 out of 50 patients with migraines reported the occurrence of neck symptoms (tightness and/or pain) during different phases of their attacks. This supports the evidence surrounding the complex connection between the cervical spine and migraines. Neck-related issues are of much larger significance than the general population may think. There is a lot of evidence to support the close relationship between the neck and close-by structures, such as jaw, face, and head. In our office, treating the upper neck has been shown to help people suffering from short and long-term issues in those areas.
Written by Dr. Ty Wilson
References:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/art.22684
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1526-4610.1994.hed3402088.x
http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/10229999
