During our lives, many of us will have neck pain, and most of us won’t know exactly what caused it. In fact, neck pain can start from a whole range of causes. Maybe you slept funny and woke up with a crick that won’t go away. Perhaps you twisted it wrong one day in one of those high-intensity aerobic classes.

Even though most of us will experience neck pain, we won’t all feel it in the same way. Sometimes, it’s just on one side of your neck; sometimes, pain shoots down your arms. A problem in your neck may even cause terrible headaches or dizziness. Symptoms may be gone in a few days, or you may have long-term pain that limits what you can do every day. No matter what’s causing your neck pain, it hurts, and you’re probably very eager to get rid of it. To get the best treatment for your neck, it’s important to recognize and understand the symptoms. With neck pain, you may have symptoms such as:

• Neck soreness on one or both sides
• Burning pain
• Tingling sensations
• Stiffness
• Pain around your shoulder blades
• Pain, numbness, or weakness in your arm
• Trouble swallowing, talking, writing, or walking

You need to know what’s causing your neck pain because that impacts your treatment options. As you probably know, there are a lot of ways to experience neck pain. It may be mild or severe, numbing or burning, in your neck or in your hand. There’s a variety of symptoms because there’s a variety of causes of neck pain.

 Risk Factors for Neck Pain

More and more people are now making their living sitting at a desk. The use of computers have risen astronomically and many of us spend eight to ten hours a day slumped over the keyboard and staring at the monitor. When we sit with our head in a forward bent position, the posture that most desk workers assume, the ligaments that hold the facets together and the muscles in the neck are put under tremendous strain.

In addition, the normal forward curve of the neck becomes reversed causing more stress upon all the surrounding tissues of the neck. All of this can lead to spinal problems including disc herniation and subluxations, which are the main causes of
spinal nerve irritation.