Your neck supports the weight and movement of your head – quite a job, since an adult’s head can weigh between ten and fourteen pounds. It also contains the vast majority of nerves that reach from your brain to the rest of your body, like a pipe full of fibre optic cables. With the amount of driving, computer work and TV watching that most of us do, it’s not surprising that we need a little chiropractic help to keep our necks doing their job properly.

Hold yourself up

The further away from your body you hold something, the heavier it feels. Neck pain may often be caused by the long term effect of bad posture, especially when you regularly hold a weight too far from your body. This might be:

• The weight of your head, as you bend over a desk.

• Lifting babies and children

• Manual work

The result is a loss of proper movement in the joints in your neck, which may interfere with the healthy working of the nerves that run through it. It can lead to pain, although it may take days, weeks or even months to develop.

Not just a pain in the neck

Loss of proper joint movement may cause irritation of the nerves that come out of your spine. This in turn can lead to pain where the nerve ends. This is known as referred pain. You may already know about sciatica, which is leg pain often caused by nerve irritation in the lower spine. Brachialgia means “pain in the arm”, and may be caused by nerve irritation in the neck. This is why your neck may be treated when you have consulted your chiropractor about shoulder and arm problems including:

• Frozen shoulder
• Tendonitis
• Tennis elbow
• Carpal tunnel syndrom