Hey guys, Dr. Tyler McClimon with McClimon Chiropractic, and today we’re going to talk about three of the main reasons that we get neck pain today. And we’re also going to talk to you about how what we do to relieve neck pain is different than everybody else and why we get such great results with that.
So guys, look, neck pain affects about 30% of people on an annual basis, which means it’s probably going to affect you at some point in your life. So it’s a very common ailment that many people suffer from. And there are three main reasons that I see that commonly cause neck pain today.
1. Not Taking Care of Your Spine
One of those reasons, guys, is that we don’t actually take care of our spine, okay? So think about this. If you didn’t brush your teeth for a day, a week, a month, a year, would your dental hygiene be better or worse? Yeah, it would, like, suck, right?
So, like, if you don’t take care of your teeth, they rot. If you don’t take care of your spine, it rots. So look, your spine is what houses your nervous system that runs your life. So if you don’t take care of it, it’s not going to be as healthy.
So one of the main reasons that we have not only neck pain but a lot of other issues in the body is that we don’t take care of the thing that houses our computer system, or nervous system, that runs our life.
So that’s one of the key points here, guys. If you’ve never actually checked your spine, which houses your nervous system that runs your life, it’s a good place to start because this is what runs your life, and it’s inside your spine. If you’ve never checked that, I would start there.
So not checking your spine is definitely one of the reasons why we get into trouble. And the reason that is, guys, is because we base health on one thing. We base health on how we feel, okay? But how we feel is a terrible reflection of what our health is.
2. Technology and the Structure of the Spine
And we’re talking about neck pain here. The second reason is technology. And this is why these two kind of go together: technology impacts the structure of the spine.
And with all of us looking down at computers, at phones on a daily basis, the average American today looks down on a phone, on a smartphone, over five hours a day. The average Gen Z looks on a device over six and a half hours a day.
If you look down at a device half of the hours of a day, it’s going to not only give you neck pain, it’s going to cause a reversal of the cervical curve, which pretty much takes years of your life away. Not to mention, it contributes to osteoarthritis.
See, we don’t get osteoarthritis in the spine because we’re old. We get it because we have old misalignment. So when the spine shifts out of place, it puts not only pressure on your nervous system, but it’s bad biomechanics.
So if you drive on a crooked tire, it wears out faster. You live on a crooked spine, it wears out faster. So we don’t get osteoarthritis or wear and tear because we’re old. We get it because we have old misalignment.
So the second thing, technology, is very damaging to the cervical curve. You have kids, you have younger ones—make sure, half the battle is being conscious of your posture on those devices, on technology. Please try and get away from looking down. It is destroying the cervical curve.
When you lose that cervical curve, guys, look, the cervical curve is seven times stronger with the proper curve in there. And when you lose the cervical curve—in other words, it’s straight or it’s backwards—there’s 20 to 30 times more pressure put down on your nervous system.
So it’s no wonder. Carry a bowling ball here and carry it here. When your neck is backwards, it’s carrying it out here all the time, and then we wonder why we have neck pain and tension headaches.
So structure is very important to function, and technology is causing us to lose that structure. So be really conscious of your posture around technology and devices. So the number two reason is technology today.
3. Alignment and Subluxation
And thirdly is alignment, okay? So alignment and biomechanics of the spine are very important. Obviously, technology ruins that alignment, which is why we have neck pain. But the other thing is alignment in the sense of what we call subluxation.
So the bones of the spine can shift out of the normal position and put dangerous pressure on the nervous system. That’s called subluxation. We’ll show you a model here in a little bit.
That puts pressure on the nervous system. That affects whatever that nerve controls in the body. So if it’s your neck, it could give you neck pain. But guess what? There are 50 other things that can happen in the neck that you don’t feel when there’s pressure, because what happens today? We base health on how we feel, okay?
Basing Health on How We Feel
We base health on how we feel, not because health is how we feel. We base health on how we feel because we’ve been trained to do that.
Listen. Today in the United States, heart disease and cancer are the two top killers of people. Do we typically feel heart disease and cancer? No. But here are the two things killing the most people, we don’t usually feel, but we still base health on how we feel.
It’s not congruent. It doesn’t make any sense. But the only reason we do it isn’t because it’s true. We do it because big pharma trained us to do it. So I’m training you right now not to do it because that’s what kills your health.
That’s what leads to disease and dysfunction in the body, because no one ever proactively looked at the system that runs their life. They just wait till it hurts again.
Are you going to just brush your teeth when they hurt, or are you going to brush your teeth to keep them healthy? Same thing with the spine. When we don’t take care of it, we don’t look at it, it decays, it degenerates and leads to dysfunction and disuse in the body. And that’s not where you want to be. You want to be proactive with your health.
The Spinal Nerve Chart
And so alignment has a lot to do with the function of the nervous system through the condition called subluxation. If it misaligns, it presses on nerves, affects what those nerves control. That’s why we have the spinal nerve chart.
Okay, the spinal nerve chart—we’ll show you a smaller picture of that. It has all the nerves that come out of the spine and different effects that occur depending on where there’s pressure.
So C1 could affect headaches, high blood pressure, dizziness, neck pain, right? C2 could affect your sinuses, your allergies. C6 would cause pain in your neck, even neck pain going down your arm, right? C7 could affect your thyroid glands. So every nerve controls something different.
So we find where those subluxations are, make specific adjustments. That restores the communication between brain and body, allows the nervous system to function properly and the body to function properly.
Guys, chiropractic is a lifestyle that helps create healthy human beings by allowing the flow of information that keeps the body healthy and healing, operating without any nerve interference.
Focusing on the Root Cause of Neck Pain
So to help with neck pain, we focus on the things that actually are the root cause of the neck pain rather than just try and mask the symptom with a drug or some kind of therapy or some kind of food, right?
So that’s the difference: we focus on the root cause of the problem rather than just masking the symptoms.
And so if you guys are suffering with neck pain, you’ve never looked at your spine, never had it evaluated, never looked at your technology and never looked at your alignment, it’s really something you want to do.
Again, alignment’s important. We don’t get arthritis because we’re old. We get osteoarthritis because we have old misalignment. If you haven’t checked it, you definitely want to check it.
What You’ll Experience When You Come Into the Office
So you guys have neck pain and you come into the office. Just to kind of give you a little walkthrough as to what you’ll experience when you come into the office.
The Front Desk and Adjustment Setting
We come into the front desk here. This is where you’ll see Marcella. Marcella will be back here to greet you. You’ll fill out your paperwork unless you have it done ahead of time. And then, as you come into the office, we’ll bring you back, okay?
The office looks like this. We have an open adjustment setting, good for flow purposes, also good for educational purposes.
We do focus on correcting the spine. Obviously, after what I just told you, structure is very important. And this is a neck picture. So you can see a neck here. This is after 12 months. You can see better structure.
Better structure will give us better function with the nervous system. It will also help prevent that degenerative arthritic process from either happening or from coming about in the first place.
This is also why we, especially, see a lot of kids and families in chiropractic. It’s not only good for adults to get well, but for kids to stay well. Just like dental hygiene, we promote spinal hygiene.
The spine is the structure that houses the nervous system that runs every function of the body. The healthier the spine is, the healthier we are. The sicker the spine is, the sicker we are.
The Drug Jug
Drug jug. A lot of patients come in and take different medications for symptoms and conditions. But as we improve function, chiropractic patients take about 85% less medication. That’s right, 85% less medication for people under chiropractic care. They go in here, and that’s always a win.
Cervical Rolling and the Neck Curve
Talking about neck pain, we talked about the structure of the spine. We talked about technology. A lot of people, they have lost that proper curve in the neck. That’s called the arc of life.
The neck is seven times stronger with that curve in there. But with technology, devices, computers, it’s really stressful on that, and a lot of people have lost that, where that curve is now going backwards.
You do not want that. It’s terrible for your health, and it contributes to osteoarthritis and pain. So cervical rolling helps to restore that, along with adjustments.
The Exam Room and Spinal Model
Restroom we have in here. As you come back in here, we’ll do your exam. Exam room in here. I’ll have Marcella show you the spinal nerve chart here.
Okay, so this is the nerve chart I was talking about. It shows you all the nerves as they come out and then different effects that occur depending on where there’s pressure, okay?
Just to give you a little view of the spine here, talking about subluxation. So normally, we have a curve like this in the neck. When we lose that curve, see how it stretches that spinal cord inside.
If that curve goes backwards like this, it puts a tremendous amount of stress on the spinal cord and on the brainstem. That will give you neck pain. That will definitely affect the functioning nervous system, and it will contribute to osteoarthritis down the road.
You do not want that. You want to have that proper curvature in there, and the only way to really evaluate that is through a proper exam and a specific X-ray. But that will tell you the truth as to the health of your spine.
The Exam and Digital X-rays
So after we do the exam in here, we do some orthopedic tests for your specific symptoms, get a history, we check posture, we check balance, and then we do our exam.
From there, we always take X-rays to see is to know, not to see is to guess. We come back into the X-ray room here. Back here, we’ll do your X-rays.
And then here, we have digital X-ray in here, guys. So state-of-the-art technology to give us the best pictures of your spine so that we can truly evaluate that and give you the best care specifically to your subluxation pattern and your issue. So X-ray here.
The Doctor’s Report of Findings
From there, day two, we’ll have you come back. We do a doctor’s report of findings. That is in here.
So we sit down here one-on-one with the doctor, and we go over what we found in your exam, in your X-rays, and let you know if you have subluxation, if this is a chiropractic case, and go over how long you’ll have to come in, how much it’ll cost and how to give you the best result.
So we do the doctor’s report in here, guys.
Checking Your Spine and Restoring Structure
So just to recap, remember, neck pain is a very common condition today. Most people will experience that at some point in their life.
You’re suffering with neck pain, and you tried medications, you tried therapies, you maybe eat better. You know, you tried everything you can, but you haven’t checked your spine. It’s probably the reason that you’re not getting rid of the root cause of the problem.
Look at this, guys. This is your spine. Here’s your spine. When that spine shifts, okay, like this, it puts a tremendous amount of stress on that neck. Is the medication going to fix that? Is a therapy going to fix that? Is eating healthy going to fix that? Is stretching going to fix that?
The only thing that’s going to fix that is a specific series of specific chiropractic adjustments. Corrective chiropractic adjustments to correct the spine to restore the structure, which restores the function.
When you have this, guess what you have? Tight muscles. That tight muscle, you can massage it, you get therapy, you could take a pill. You don’t fix the structure, it’s not going away, okay?
So if you haven’t checked this, definitely a good idea. It will not only help you get rid of your neck pain, it’s going to restore function to the rest of your body in many, many ways that you don’t feel, okay?
So guys, we’ve been doing this over 20 years. We’re experts at it. We take care of the spine because the spine’s what takes care of you.
So McClimon Chiropractic, you guys know where to find us. Hope this information has helped you out, and we look forward to seeing you soon.
