Hello, my name is Jeremy Wehking.  I’m a physical therapist and owner of Advanced Physical Therapy Specialists.  I wanted to talk to you today about neck pain.  So lots of things can cause neck pain.  And I would recommend being seen by a physician or physical therapist to determine your best course of action before starting with a physical therapy program.

I’ll see lots of people presenting with neck pain in the clinic.  Some are from trauma-such as a car accident or a fall, and in these cases sometimes I’ll need to have the person get the appropriate imaging before starting with physical therapy.  The great majority of neck pain I see though isn’t due to trauma at all but atraumatic.

These people will often times have sedentary jobs, with lots of sitting, their ergonomics may not be ideal while at their desk.  I tell folks that if they only had to be at their desk for 5 min a week, they could stand on their head and it wouldn’t make a difference, but the problem is many people now spend 8-10 hours at a desk every day, and then follow it up with a large amount of driving and sitting at home.  It’s like if you had a rock in your shoe and walked out to your mailbox-it might not be a big deal, but if you run a marathon with a rock in your shoe, chances are it’s going to tear up your foot.

Throw all that sitting on top of a person that might have a neck problem and chances are you’ll start to have pain and difficulty moving.  I’ll treat people with all types of neck diagnosis.  This includes buging discs, herniated discs, stenosis, spondylolisthesis, bone spurs, cervical radiculopathies, neck sprains and strains, degenerative disc disease, degenerative joint disease, and arthritis to name a few.  The good news is while all those awful sounding things can certainly cause neck pain, they don’t have too.  And there is a growing body of evidence to support this.  They have found that people who have never had neck pain and have had MRI and xrays have many of the same problems showing up on the xray or MRI, but they don’t hurt!

How Will Physical Therapy Help My Neck Problem?

I get the question all the time, and it is a good one, how is physical therapy going to help my neck problem?  And the answer is, while I can’t take away say the stenosis, I can get things moving correctly, nerves, joint, muscles, address the motor control problem that has been putting stress on your neck for days, weeks, months, often times years, which is probably the driver or at least contributing to your current situation.  And once we accomplish this you will have decreased pain, often times no pain at all, and can return to full function.  It sounds simple enough, and there are a handful of people out there trying to address one small part of the problem.  So you might feel better for a short period of time, but you won’t get a lasting result.  I’ll look at all the possible issues and get you feeling better as quickly and efficiently as possible so that you can get back to running, walking, lifting your children, playing with the grandkids, or whatever it is you aren’t able to do because of your pain.

I’ve thrown a bunch out there, so if you have questions and would like to set up a phone consultation call me at 720-357-4079.  Talk to you soon!

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