As was discussed in the first article, keeping your neck
healthy is critical for proper overall health throughout your lifetime. From a
neurological and functional perspective, the seven pairs of cervical nerves
that branch off the spinal cord and travel between the joints in the neck control
much of the information and activities of everything above the shoulders and
for our upper extremities. This includes controlling muscles of the face, neck
and arms as well as having input with our hearing and vocal capabilities.
Through those nerves we also receive input to and feedback from some very
important glands that help us regulate processes all throughout our body,
namely the pituitary and thyroid glands. Therefore, we need to do all we can to
keep discs, muscles, bones and joints as healthy as possible so that the nerves
can be free to communicate without interference.
Proper alignment of the spinal joints in the neck and
ensuring that they are all moving through their full ranges of motion is a
must. If the spinal joints get stuck and
don't move properly, they can irritate nearby spinal nerves as the muscles try
force movement of the joints. If the joints move too much, spinal bones can
also press against the nerves that run near them and cause compression. Either
scenario can cause pain, numbness, tingling or weakness or organs that are
under/overactive. In these cases, alignment and motion must be restored and
inflammation reduced. In most cases if pain is present (which is a first sign
that nerve irritation is occurring) the first step would be to apply cold to
the affected area. Not only will this help with the pain since ice has an
analgesic effect on the nerves, but it will also decrease the swelling and
inflammation, which usually prolongs the recovery time and sustains the pain
since the swelling will continue to put pressure on the injured tissues. After
that, chiropractic adjustments will help restore proper alignment in the neck
and keep the joints moving freely with one another, reducing the chance of
further nerve irritation. Your doctor will help explain to you whether these
issues are due to recent injury or are the result of stresses and traumas that
have gone on in the neck for longer periods of time.
Another way to
minimize your risk of neck problems is through proper sleeping posture. Most
people are best served by avoiding sleeping on their stomachs. When you sleep
this way, you will typically have your neck in a rotated and extended position
for hours while you are sleep. This results in one side of the neck being
stretched and twisted while the other side is compressed. Normally we will go
through those motions briefly in the average day, but this would be like
walking around half the day looking over your shoulder. (Try it one day if you
don’t believe this could be damaging to the neck.) Ideally we should be
sleeping on either our backs or sides, but with certain criteria. On your back
should be with only enough pillow or support under the neck to keep the head in
a neutral position centered over the shoulders, same as if you were standing.
Too many pillows will cause the head to be in the forward position similar to
what was mentioned with poor posture above. If you sleep on your side, use
enough pillows to keep the head, neck and back all in a straight line. Say you
are lying on your right side. You don’t want too many pillows so that the head
is bending to the left or a flat pillow/too few pillows so that your head is
bending to the right. People with broader shoulders may need 1 or 2 pillows to
fill the gap between head and mattress; children generally only need one.
Taking a little extra
time to make sure posture is ideal, whether it be while you are asleep or
awake, will go a long way to determining whether the neck is in good shape as
you age or if you are setting yourself up for neck pain or conditions like
degenerative arthritis as a result of increased stress on the joints. Some
changes do become irreversible, so prevention is the key.
In Health,
Dr. Brad Niewierowski
