Neck Pain Support Blog

How Does A Disc Problem Cause Pain

 

We must ask ourselves: How does our body detect pain?  The nerves detect pain and relay the message to the brain.   The other thing is that it sometimes depends on the nerve or nerves, you see, some detect pain and some don't.  In fact, most of our nerves don't actually detect pain at all.

 

What is the purpose of our disc?  The discs allow us to twist, jump, run, and more, and have some shock absorption while doing those things.  Not only that, they act as spacers between spinal bones.  This allows for an opening so the nerve roots can exit off of the spinal cord.  In actuality it is the brain, to spinal cord, to nerve roots, to smaller, and to smaller nerves, to every part of the body.

 

What happens when a disc gets injured?  We can have a few types of injury.  A disc can degenerate, it can bulge, it can tear, or it can rupture.  A degenerative disc, or arthritic disc, is one that has flattened and possible bulged out.  Analogous to a flat tire, the disc is similar, it flattens and bulges out.  Now it does depend exactly where that bulge is; this may tell us if we get pain.

 

The nerves exit off of the cord and out of the spine in the back side of the column.  We refer to that as poterolateral.  A bulge, rupture, or tear here may be the most painful.  This is in comparison to a disc that bulges more toward the anterior may cause much more pain.

 

Many people have degeneration or arthritis and are walking around with no pain.  There is some other symptomatology besides pain of someone with degeneration.  That may include morning stiffness or decreased range of motion.

 

There are some sensory nerve fibers in the discs themselves also.  Hence a disc tear may give pain.  When a disc burst or tears because of a herniation you may get pain for both reason.  The inner disc is referred to as the nucleus, the outer part is the annulus.

 

With a bulge that inner disc may push out on the annulus causing a "bulge".  In a rupture or herniation, the nucleus breaks through the annulus.

 

Additional Reading:

1) "This pillow saved my life..."

2) Slipped Disc?

3) Done well with the pillow? What's next...

Does Your Neck Neck Pain Feel Better Because Something Else Is Hurting?

Just because you low back pain has creeped up and really hurts, sometimes even goes into the leg.  This doesn't mean that the neck is all-of-a-sudden all better.  So, you have sciatica (that's the leg and back pain), there's good probability that this is all that's on your mind.

 

Meanwhile the the neck pain is still there, in fact, it could be worse.  If you have pain in one of those areas, there's a high probability you get pain in the other.

 

Here's why:  if you have arthritis in one area of the spine then it's probably in another.  Think about it; what is arthritis?  It's a breakdown to that area, and it presents as boney deterioration, loss of disc height, and maybe inflammation.

 

The most common form of Arthritis is Degenerative Joint Disease or DJD.  It typically presets with those characters - the bones get deformed and get jagged edges or spurs, the disc flattens like a jelly donut and is often bulged out, and inflammation crowds the area often putting pressure on nerves.

 

There are so any forms of arthritis really: rheumatoid, ankylosing spondylitis, etc...  All have specific characteristics that make them unique, but they all typically have the 3 components I mentioned, in some way, shape, or form.

 

So here we are with some pretty bad neck discomfort but now the low back is worse, so we've put neck pain on the back burner.  Because of this you can make the neck worse however.  Let's just say you are doing all you can to protect the lower back, well this opens up the neck for greater chance of injury.

 

The entire spine works together, so we really need to take care of all of it.  So whether one area hurts more than another, try not to neglect any area that needs your attention.

 

Additional Resources:

1) My Pain Pillow...

2) Masking Your Symptoms?

3) The Importance of Exercise.

Stretching And The Mind-Body Connection

Stretching is a vital part of your workout.  Stretching should be done before and after a workout.  I know some of you are saying, "what, I don't have time for that?"  I'mnot talking about much time at all, however...Maybe 5 minutes of total stretching. 

You simply start before your workout with some dynamic stretches.  Those get you moving and limber.  Let's say you are working your shoulders - so maybe it's 3 or 4 arm circles to the front and three in the opposite direction.

After the work-out we do what they call sustained stretches.  That means stretch and hold.  In that shoulder example a good stretch would be bringing your arm across the body and holding it 10-20 seconds.

I really wanted to talk about the neck.  First, your neck seems to get a little workout no matter what muscle group you are targeting.  Even if it's just a cardio day and you are running, you better believe your neck feels it too. Second, if you have any kind of neck strain going on, neck pain issues, or neck arthritis, you should be spending another 60 seconds stretching this.

So for the neck, before the workout, in addition to your other body part warm-up stretches and post work-out stretches, do neck rolls.  I want you to do rolls to the front and rolls to the back.

Here's how - flex your head forward and genly roll from one shoulder to the other.  Next, extend the head back and do the same thing; shoulder to shoulder.  Start slow and only flex or extend as much as the body will allow.

After the work-out you want to stretch to relax and help elongate the muscle.  This is good for the mind as well and will allow you to relax and have a good "cool-down".

 

Additional Reading:

1) Are you afraid to work out because of Neck Pain?

2) How To Stretch the Neck

3) Get Neck Pain Relief -