Pain Management | Chronic Pain Relief | Injury Treatment

Thecervical spine is the thinnest and most flexible part of the human spine. It is tasked with supporting the weight of the head in the upright position while allowing turning in multiple planes looking left, right, up, down and behind.

The cervical spineprotects the brain stem and spinal cord; is directly behindtheesophagus and trachea, and containstwo important blood vessels on either side that bring blood toyour brain. Last but not least, the cervical spinehouses thenerves that control your arms and hands.

Given all these vital functions, it is wise to take good care of your cervical spine in a proactive way.

The cervical spine is naturally designed to curve, where the apex is at about the level of the Adams apple.

This curve behaves much like a spring in a cars suspension; or the slight upwards curve you see in any bridge design. Long ago, architects discovered that the load capacity of bridges could be dramatically increased simply by integrating curves or arcs into the design. Like a neck curve, a bridge curve or arcdistributes weight over a greater area so that gravity cannot concentrate over one small area and cause structural failure.

If the neck curve helps distribute the weight of the head in the upright position, what do you suppose might happen if the curve straightened out or started to bend in the opposite directionlike the one to the left?

If you lose your cervical curve over time, which could happen from years of poor posture or trauma like multiple rear-end car collisions, you will probably not notice it until several years pass. The change in biomechanics shifts a greater burden of supportto your cervical discs and vertebral end plates. This promotes disc degeneration. The once thick and healthy discs lose fluid content, lose strength, allow the center material to bulge out (herniate, protrude or rupture) and cause bony protuberances called osteophytes to form all around the edges of the vertebrae and facet joints.

For some unfortunate people, the bony projections narrow the passageways where the nerve roots and spinal cord pass through (a condition called spinal stenosis) and neck surgery is necessary to prevent nerve tissue from permanent damage,paralysis andsevere paresthesias (numbness, tingling) in both the arms and legs.

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Pain Management | Chronic Pain Relief | Injury Treatment