We all experience neck pain from time to time. There are many causes, including muscle and ligament strains, poor posture, whiplash, poor physical conditioning, sleeping with poor neck support, or even preexisting conditions such as arthritis.
Depending on your type of neck pain, you may also experience symptoms in the upper back, shoulders, arms and hands. Your chiropractor will determine what type of neck condition you have and can offer relief for your pain. Care may include adjustments, physiotherapeutic modalities, such as ultrasound, or soft tissue therapy such as massage.
You could have vertebral subluxation complex (VSC) of the cervical spine and not even know it. A complex condition comprising five different components, VSC may not elicit feelings of pain or discomfort in its initial stages, as pain does not always accompany a lack of function.
Let's take a step back to see where this condition occurs. Touch the back of your neck to feel your cervical spine. This is the top of the spine, the part that connects with the brain. Beneath it is the thoracic spine, which makes up the mid back, and the lumbar spine, which makes up the low back.
Vertebral subluxation complex (VSC) in the cervical spine occurs when the vertebrae in the neck lose their normal motion or position, which can lead to local inflammation and affect the delicate nerves in the spinal cord that carry messages between the brain and the rest of the body.
The brain and body communicate via messages that travel through these nerves, which are located along the entire length of the spine. These nerves, along with the brain, collectively make up the central nervous system. They exit the spinal column through holes formed by vertebral joints and send out an extensive network of branches that carry information to specific parts of the body, controlling the health and function of almost every cell, tissue and organ. Research suggests that subluxations affect how these body parts function by interfering with the brain-body communication system. Imagine a healthy nervous system surrounded by clean water, and the interference as muddy and murky water that starts to pollute it.
A variety of external and internal factors can cause subluxations. Since chiropractic's inception, trauma, toxins and emotional stress have been identified as the primary causes of subluxations. Traumatic causes include car accidents and falls; chemical toxins include alcohol, drugs and environmental pollutants; and emotional stress includes everyday problems like worrying and anxiety.
When any of these is present, it can lead to the beginning of VSC, and possibly the entire five components of the condition. The first stage is kinesiopathology, which begins when spinal joints become stuck, forcing the joints around them to work harder in order to compensate. Unfortunately, this compensation does not change the fact that the spinal joints aren't functioning properly, and thus the spine's normal curvature can distort and the stuck joint can contribute to nerve irritation.
Most often, this occurs when malfunctioning spinal bones stretch, twist or pull nerve tissue. When this is serious enough it can lead to neuropathology, the second stage of VSC, which can involve either extreme nerve irritation or a pinched nerve. Pinched nerves, which are quite rare, can produce feelings patients frequently describe as "pins and needles" or a numb sensation surrounding and away from the spine. Irritated nerves can also affect those parts of the body that they communicate with and increase a person's susceptibility to disease.
This interference in the nervous system can lead to the third component of VSC, myopathology, which involves abnormal muscle function. With myopathology, nerve impulses can diminish to the point that they under stimulate muscles, which causes them to weaken and atrophy, or become too strong and overstimulate muscles, which causes them to work too hard and tighten, and potentially go into spasm. This can lead to inflammation in muscles and joints, which can cause further complications by spreading to the rest of the soft tissues in the spine.
If that happens, it can lead to the fourth component of VSC, histopathology, which involves abnormal function of soft tissue. This occurs when abnormal spinal joint function diminishes blood supply and leads to long-term swelling of structures like ligaments, disks and other soft tissues.
If people don't seek care during any of these stages, VSC can affect the whole body. This is pathophysiology, the fifth and final stage of VSC, when degenerative changes in the spine begin to spread. At this stage, calcium deposits may have built up, and are eventually recognizable as bone spurs and other abnormal growths. When this happens, your body has gone to the extreme of compensating for a malfunctioning or traumatized joint by actually creating a growth similar to new bone. It has slowly transformed immobile, untreated joints into solid blocks of calcium. This final component of VSC becomes more common as people get older.
While it takes many years for someone to develop problems associated with the final component of VSC, the condition can begin at any age. That's why it's important to visit your chiropractor, as he or she can check for subluxations and provide you with optimal care. Your chiropractor may perform adjustments to correct any subluxations, which involve gentle and usually painless thrusts that realign faulty joints and allow the body to heal. Combined with proper spinal care, this can prevent VSC from progressing into a more serious condition.
