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NECK PAIN and HEADACHE

NECK PAIN

Neck pain and headache can floor the toughest of human beings. Oddly, it's at the extremities of the body where pain is felt with the greatest intensity - the feet, the hands and the neck and head. Those parts of us that are most vitally in contact with the environment have the most sensory receptors.

"The most significant input into the Central Nervous System with regard to balance, posture and movement comes from the mechano-receptors of the cervical spine."

- Guyton (the most revered textbook of Medical Physiology.)








Thus it comes as no surprise that the noci-ceptors in these self-same structures can and do flood the brain with nervous impulses. We just feel the pain in the neck more intensely. It's rare that even the worst sore back will drive a person to tears, but even the toughest and most rugged individuals must sometimes submit to the neck! A really painful neck can humble any one of us.

Whereas one can usually find respite from a very sore back in certain positions, from the painful neck there is often no escape. It hurts!

The reason? Neck Pain Anatomy.The head and neck, hands and feet are full of nerves finding their way from a million nociceptors in the muscles, bones, joints, ligaments and fascia sending information to the brain, reminding the Central Nervous System when all is not well in the state of Denmark. Hamlet, I believe.

HEADACHE


Some 80% of headaches originate in the structures of the neck. It can be muscular, or from a neck joint, a whiplash perhaps, some structure that fires these noxious impulses into the spinal cord. Interestingly only a small proportion of them are referred to the brain, but enough when it's coming from the neck to cause a blinding headache. The rest fire into the autonomic system, stimulating the sympathetics, adversely affecting general health.

A week never passes when I don't have a new patient in the clinic who is taking 15 or more pills per week for neck pain and headache that they have been suffering from for years. The effect on the kidneys is devastating. The Kidney Foundation's Transplant Games are a stark reminder to us of the danger of chronic analgestic medication. Most of these athletes lost their kidneys through painkillers.

Chiropractic has a quite different opinion to medicine. We say treat the cause. If a bone in the neck is fractured or the ligaments torn in a whiplash, put the neck in a collar. If a muscle is tight, stretch it. If a joint is fixated, adjust it. These treatments have no side-effects, or very few. And if anyone tries to convince you that Chiropractic is dangerous, just ask why their insurance premiums are a tenth of the those of their medical colleagues.

Medicine says kill the pain, take these analgesics, or deal with the inflammation, take these anti-inflammatories. Did you know that 14 000 people a year actually die in the USA from a bleeding ulcer caused by ANTI INFLAMMATORY DRUGS? And that doesn't include those who have a heart attack or stroke, other side effects. Little wonder that malpractice premiums are so high! Read more about the massive fraud committed by

PFIZER BEXTRA.

  • The standard Chiropractic test for neck pain. CERVICAL COMPRESSION TEST. (A fun page, don't miss it!)

    JAW PAIN

    The jaw joint may cause TMJ ear pain (Tempero-Mandibular-Joint), another frequent cause of neck pain and headaches sometimes accompanied by facial and ear pain.

    If you enjoy reading then this Chiropractic short story about jaw joint pain from Frog in my Throat will interest you.

    STROKE AND HEADACHE


    REMBRANDT - A physician peeling the meninges off the brain.


    A severe headache can (rarely) be the prelude to a stroke. Afterwards, patients remark that it was 'the most severe headache of my life'. Rather deal with the cause of your headache before it reaches this stage.

    Doctors also get sick, Chiropractors hurt their backs, and I'm sure Dentists also need attention periodically! In this interview with a neurologist who had the most severe stroke from which she was very fortunate to recover (it took 10 years of perseverence), she describes in graphic detail what happened.

    I don't often enthuse about things medical, but this is an interview you don't want to miss. It's spell binding!

    MY STROKE OF INSIGHT …

    Was she taking post-menopausal hormone tablets? I don't know, but they do raise the risk of haemorrhagic stroke. Read more about Doctor-caused Disease. IATROGENIC ILLNESS.…

    VERTIGO

    Dizziness may sometimes accompany neck pain and headache. It can be mild, and it can be very DISCONCERTING. VERY. Nausea and vomiting may accompany the vertigo.

    There are numerous causes.

    1. One is Meniere's disease, but can only be diagnosed if there is accompanying deafness and tinnitis, ringing in the ears.

    2. BPPV. More commonly vertigo is caused by grit that collects in one of the inner ear "semi-circular" canals.


      It has been conclusively shown, many times, that the best treatment for Vertigo, is NOT PILLS, nor a CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENT, but the EPLEY MANOEUVRES. The most common cause of vertigo is called Benign Postural Positional Vertigo. BPPV is diagnosed by a simple manoeuvre called the HALLPIKE-DIX test.

      ANECDOTE:Evening before last, after a long day I arrived home with a dull upper neck pain and headache. Damn, I thought, it's at least three months since I've had my own neck adjusted. I enjoyed a quiet evening, listened to some Vivaldi, enjoyed some of the good wife's celery soup and went off to an early night with a Sudoku, but couldn't concentrate.

      I woke up yesterday quite normally. I then turned my head to the right to look at the clock, and the whole world began to spin. Interestingly it rotated at different speeds, speeding up, and then slowing down again. I jerked my head back again to the centre. The dizziness stopped. Cautiously I turned right again, and it all started over again.

      "Helen, please do me a favour. Quickly, don't ask any questions, jut look at my eyes and tell me there is anything odd happening." She sat up worried and looked carefully as I turned my head again to the right. "They're dancing she said. Back and forth!".

      "I'm having an attack of vertigo," I said. "I must go through a strange routine." Four times I went through the Epley's, each time the vertigo getting less, but feeling quite nauseous. You have to wait in each position until the vertigo stops. It's not nice, to say the least. By the fourth it had stopped completely.

      I got up quietly, went through the morning routine without drama, and worked a normal day. This morning I had no vertigo, nor neck pain and headache.

    3. NECK SUBLUXATION.A third cause is in the upper neck where the artery become disturbed and the blood flow to the inner ear is affected.



      Let it be said that the Chiropractic adjustment, in the first instance is definitely NOT the treatment of choice. But there are some people with a negative Hallpike-Dix test who get vertigo. The problem is not in the inner ear, nor do they have high blood pressure - they may have a subluxation in the upper neck.

      This an area where your chiropractor will tread very carefully. If you are a high risk patient, smoker, obese, high cholesterol, on the pill, h/she may well decline to adjust your neck.

      Having said that there are some patients whose vertigo is quickly fixed by a gentle cervical adjustment. Done with caution.

  • Stroke. A short story.

    FROG IN MY THROAT

    An embarrassing puncture while riding his 'dream machine' to work brings Bernard Preston into contact with a patient suffering from neck pain and headache who once consulted Preston, but chose rather to decline Preston's 'expensive' chiropractic treatment. Instead, he opted for his doctor's anti-inflammatories. Enjoy! And think twice before taking NSAIDs for more than a week or two for neck pain and headache. If at all. Rather treat the cause of the pain.

    Can you believe it? Brought up in a Chiropractic family, I don't believe I have ever, not even once, taken NSAIDs. Not that I haven't had pain! Even chiropractors can have their dramas.

    So, just how bad is your neck pain and headache? Are you over-reacting? Do you have a significant, and perhaps very serious problem? This next link will give you some measure of your neck pain and headache, and other possible causes.

    LINKS

  • Go from NECK PAIN AND HEADACHE to CLASSIFICATION OF NECK PAIN
  • "The worst headache of my life." Sudden onset is the hallmark.
  • The CERVICAL COMPRESSION TEST. A fun, not-to-be-missed look at a basic Chiropractic Test. Seriously, don't miss it!
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