Pain in the neck can occur because of several reasons but muscle strain or sprain is most common. However, your sleeping position and bad sitting posture can affect your neck too. The pain can range from mild to severe, which demands quick attention. It’s a serious medical emergency and you need to provide neck pain treatment as soon as possible. Sometimes, it’s the sign of heart attack, stroke, gallstone, or cancer.
Before your doctor can provide treatment, he will identify the cause behind the neck pain. If you want to get neck pain relief, it’s better to first know the causes. Here, the six main causes of neck pain are explained to help you.
1) Injuries
Any injury to your soft tissue of the neck due to sudden fall, workout, or doing any other task, can result in pain. The injured tissue can seem stiff on touch. You will even experience headache if the injury is severe.
If you are someone who always work sitting front of the computer, your neck pain won’t let you work smoothly. Depending on the severity of the injury, you may not be able to move your head in right or left.
In case of major injuries, surgery can be required. But mostly, topical creams and over the counter medicines work.
2) Posture and Sleeping Position
Sitting or sleeping in the right position can help you in preventing pain in the neck.
When you keep your head in the same position for a prolonged time, it can lead to strain in the muscles and tendons. It’s better to walk a little after working for half an hour on your computer.
In case you sleep on a high pillow or use multiple ones, it influences your neck negatively.
Moreover, sudden jerking of neck during working out is another wrong activity, which, you need to avoid.
3) Cervical spondylosis
Cervical Spondylosis is a condition when your spinal disc of the neck wear and tear. It occurs in the persons aging more than 60 years.
This issue is observed when the discs between your vertebrae become stiff because of water loss. It brings them closer and in turn they rub against each other. It can cause irritation of the joints lining and this condition is referred to as cervical osteoarthritis.
In addition, it can develop bone spurs and headache in the skull’s base. Thus, you will feel pain in the neck.
5) Herniated Disc
Loss of water in the cervical discs and the closeness of vertebraes can damage one or more discs.
In this condition, the inner part of the disc may bulge or leak from the exterior. This is terms as slipped or herniated disc.
It pressurizes the neck nerves, due to which patients feel neck pain. Persons having herniated disc will feel numbness, pain, aching, and even burning sensation.
6) Pinched nerve
A pinched nerve in the neck can be one of the reasons behind pain. Because of this, the pain can travel to the shoulder. In other terms, this issue is termed as cervical radiculopathy.
Even a small spinal change because of aging or injury can be responsible for pain in the neck.
Pinched nerves can happen in presence of bone spurs too.
All these causes tingling in the fingers or hand. Sometimes, they will also get numb.
Some people can feel weakness in the shoulder or arm.
Other Possible Neck Pain Causes
- Neck pain is one of the symptoms of heart attack, which is seen along with other issues such as breath shortness, nausea, vomiting, etc.
- Meningitis is a situation when the issue surrounding your brain and spinal cord face inflammation
- Certain diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, and many others can cause neck pain.
Final Words
The above are some common causes and there can be many unknown reasons too. Your doctor can tell you better about your neck problem.
Dealing with neck pain is not easy but if treatment is not given at the right time, the situation can go adverse.
For neck pain relief, you can use Moov gel or spray. Its fast acting Diclofenac formula has the potential to aid in relieving neck pain. Many sportspersons and housewives consider it as the best pain reliever from neck and shoulder pain.