The neck of humans, like other animals, is an amazing part of the body, rather fragile, but powerful.
The cervical spine, together with all the muscles and ligaments, supports and sets in motion the cranium, absorbs shocks when walking, protects the brain from concussion, protects the blood vessels that feed it, and also protects the spinal cord.
It can be argued that almost everyone has experienced neck pain throughout their life. Neck pain can affect both men and women at any age.
When the neck hurts, the reasons can be quite varied. Some of them can self-resolve within a few days, and some can provoke chronic illness and pain.
Why does pain occur?
The most common reason why your neck hurts is poor posture. With a stooped back, the head ceases to occupy a position exactly above the body and moves forward. In this position, the muscles and ligaments of the neck experience increased tension. The development of stoop and neck pain is facilitated by prolonged work without changing position, sleeping on a soft bed or high pillow, prolonged static load.
Other causes of neck pain are an injury from falling headfirst, in a traffic accident, or while playing sports. With a sharp acceleration and then braking, the cervical spine makes a whiplash motion. As a result, ligaments and muscles can become overstretched, a displacement or compression fracture in the cervical vertebrae, and the formation of intervertebral hernias can occur.
Neck pain can occur as a secondary manifestation of other diseases. For example, with a heart attack, when a heart attack causes severe pain, radiating along the nerve plexuses to the upper limbs, chest, neck. Neck pain with a heart attack is only part of a large complex of symptoms - shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, vomiting. If your neck, jaw hurts and other signs of a heart attack are observed, you should immediately call an ambulance.
Neck pain is also used as a diagnostic sign of meningitis. With this disease, the muscles of the neck become hypertonic, that is, they become rigid. When you try to tilt your head to your chest, the back neck hurts badly.
The spine in the neck area hurts with rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, spondylosis and osteoarthritis, hernia or protrusion, with compression of the nerve roots or spinal cord with infectious edema, abscesses, tumor or benign neoplasms.
Special cases
Degenerative diseases
Osteochondrosis, or, in other words, dystrophic disorders in the intervertebral discs, leads to the fact that a person's neck constantly hurts. This is usually a mild aching pain, which is often accompanied by a feeling of numbness and aches in the shoulder girdle and head.
The collar zone affected by osteochondrosis can cause the development of cerebral artery syndrome. With a decrease in intervertebral distances in this area, a compressive damage to the vertebral arteries occurs, passing in the openings of the transverse processes of the cervical vertebrae. Pressure on the vessel causes a decrease in blood flow to the brain with the onset of dizziness, decreased vision and hearing. On the other hand, mechanical stimulation of the artery with pressure from the vertebrae causes a reflex spasm, which manifests itself as a burning throbbing pain in the head.
Treatment
If the neck constantly hurts against the background of osteochondrosis, then therapy begins with the elimination of the pain syndrome. The second mandatory direction of treatment is to stop degenerative processes in the cervical vertebrae.
Pain relief can be achieved by using the following groups of drugs:
- non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs - directly block the cascade of mediators that signal pain;
- muscle relaxants - eliminate muscle spasm, reflexively arising from severe pain;
- sedatives - they soothe and inhibit the nervous system and the transmission of pain impulses, including (valerian, antidepressants, sleeping pills);
- vasodilators - help to eliminate vertebral artery syndrome and pain associated with it.
To eliminate the cause of neck pain in osteochondrosis, chondroprotective drugs are prescribed that prevent the destruction of cartilage and vertebrae, as well as multivitamin mineral complexes.
Pain management also consists of physical therapy, physiotherapy, massage, traction, reflex and taping therapy. During an exacerbation, in order to relieve pain, the patient is advised to wear a special collar that protects the neck from excessive mobility.
Muscle pain
Soreness in the neck can be caused by an inflammation of the muscles called myositis.
Such pain should be distinguished from neuritis (inflammation of the nerve trunks with a sensory disorder) and pain provoked by osteochondrosis.
Myositis occurs suddenly, after exposure to predisposing factors - hypothermia, vibration, prolonged overexertion, especially with prolonged repetitive movements of the same type.
Cervical myositis is characterized by acute pain that occurs when the inflamed muscle contracts. The sharp severity of pain leads to difficulty in performing certain types of movement.
Usually, the long muscles of the neck on the anterolateral surface or the sternocleidomastoid muscles hurt, which, with a bilateral contraction, pull the head back, and with a one-sided contraction, they turn it.
The deep muscles that surround the spine are also often inflamed and set the entire neck and back in motion.
When probing a muscle, its increased tone and dense knotty areas are noted. Violation of microcirculation and local trophism leads to the gradual replacement of myocytes with connective tissue. As a result, the neck muscles weaken, their symmetry is broken on the sides of the spine, torticollis may appear, and it is difficult for the patient to keep his head straight.
Treatment
Treatment begins with reducing the strain on the neck. This is followed by a course of physiotherapeutic procedures - heating with UHF, electrophoresis with drugs, heating with paraffin, wrapping with ozokerite, diathermy, massage, acupuncture. Such procedures restore blood circulation to the muscles of the neck. Of the drugs, injections of B vitamins, anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs, ointments and rubbing are prescribed.
Alternative treatment recommends using cabbage or burdock leaves as pain relieving compresses, preparing an ointment from pounded willow buds in butter, making rubbing from a mixture of turpentine with apple cider vinegar and egg yolk. Also, the neck is rubbed with lava oil, and then wrapped. The main guarantee of the success of any treatment is to keep the sore neck calm until its muscles are fully restored. Then you should begin to return them "to duty" by means of special gymnastics and massage.
Radicular syndrome
Severe neck pain, which spreads to the muscles of the head, shoulder girdle, upper limbs, can occur when the roots of the spinal nerves are pinched during prolapse, protrusion or herniated discs.
With this disease, the inner nucleus of the disc protrudes towards the spinal canal or its lateral horns. A hernia and its symptoms usually appear on one side. When pressure is created on the roots of the spinal nerves, a burning sharp pain appears in the innervated muscles (cervical lumbago). The patient feels numbness of the lower jaw, the area around the ears, the back of the head, shoulder blades, arms. Dizziness appears, sharp soreness of the neck when changing position from horizontal to vertical. The gradual protrusion of the disc nucleus leads to trauma to the surrounding tissues, their inflammation, and edema. This creates the prerequisites for inflammation of the nerve endings with the development of radiculitis, the mobility of the neck and upper limbs is gradually limited. Prolonged infringement of the spinal nerves leads to paresis or paralysis of the limbs.
Therapy
What to do if the neck hurts with a hernia? At home, with pain syndrome, pain relievers, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, hormonal drugs, muscle relaxants are taken to relieve spasms.
In the hospital, severe pain in the neck is eliminated with the help of "blockades" - the introduction of anesthetic substances on the sides of the spine.
The swelling and inflammation are treated with steroids that can be injected directly into the hernia. Muscle soreness is eliminated by taking muscle relaxants.
Also, to prevent the further development of hernia, I use drugs that strengthen cartilage tissue - chondroprotectors.
In many cases, therapeutic exercises and traction traction of the cervical spine with protrusion or slight protrusion help. The increase in intervertebral space helps to "retraction" of the intervertebral disc and relieve pressure on the nerves.
In a true hernia with rupture of the annulus fibrosus and prolapse of the nucleus into the spinal canal, surgery is required. There are several ways to get rid of neck pain through surgery:
- anterior cervical discectomy - removal of an extra piece of disc that presses on the spinal nerves;
- replacement of the damaged disc with an artificial joint, which protects the cervical spine from further destruction;
- microendoscopic dissectomy using posterior approach and removal of small areas of hernia through an endoscope;
- posterior cervical dissectomy through an incision in the back of the neck. The operating channel is specially enlarged so that pinching does not develop in the future.
Neoplasms
If there is a constant pressing pain in the neck, one can suspect the appearance of extraneous education in this department.
Benign or malignant tumors in the neck can arise in the vertebral body, blood vessels, epithelium, connective, nervous, adipose or glandular tissue.
Benign tumors (lipoma, fibroma, neuroma, osteoma, hemangioma) are most often of the correct shape and clearly limited, they rarely cause pain. Discomfort is mainly associated with compression of the surrounding tissue by the tumor. Malignant tumors (osteosarcoma, multiple myeloma, cancer of the lymph nodes or thyroid gland) have no borders, they give many metastases to neighboring tissues. Their destructive effect on organs causes a painful sensation, a general deterioration in the condition. The front of the neck can get sick with cancer of the larynx, throat, oral organs, thyroid gland. The patient has difficulty swallowing, there are swelling in the neck and face, a change in voice. If the cervical flight hurts with a bone tumor, then this condition also often accompanies damage to the spinal cord and nerve roots on the side of the spine with the development of paralysis.
Treatment
Treatment of pain in neoplasms is aimed primarily at eliminating the cause - reducing or removing the swelling. For this purpose, chemotherapy and radiation therapy, hardening of the vessels feeding the tumor, and surgical removal of the pathological formation are used.
Pain relief depends on the severity of pain:
- weak pain medications;
- pain relievers of moderate severity;
- with increasing pain, they switch to weak opiates;
- with severe pain, analgesia is possible only with the help of opiate drugs. To enhance the analgesia of neck pain with neoplasms, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, and corticosteroids are used.
Note! Neck pain can occur for a variety of reasons. In order not to miss serious illnesses, it is necessary first of all to visit a doctor for consultation about the occurrence of pain and the exact determination of its source.