Neck Pain Relief

spinal stenosis

Is most chronic neck pain an autonomically caused condition related to mental stress?

First off, what does the phrase 'autonomically caused' mean? If you have ever been in a situation where you felt nervous, like speaking to a large audience or taking a difficult test in school, you know what an autonomic caused condition feels like. The palms of your hands might have gotten sweaty, your heart might have beaten faster, or you might have even felt like you suddenly needed to go to the bathroom. These are all autonomic reactions caused by being nervous. Stressful thoughts activate something called the autonomic nervous system and cause physical symptoms like sweaty palms. A thought causes an emotion which causes a physical reaction in your body. This is how stressful thoughts can lead to neck pain. Research published in June 1985 in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, showed that mental stress can increase muscles spasms.

This is not a new idea in healthcare, Traditional Chinese Medicine has known about the emotional aspect of health for a few thousand years. More recently, western medicine has established fields around thought causing illness with specialties like, psychoneuroimmunology, psychoneuroendocrinilogy, mindbody therapy for cancer patients, and so on. Of course, mental stress causing neck pain is so common we even use the phrase, "What a pain in the neck" when we're referring to something that's mentally stressful.

Recent research findings published in October, 2011, in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders Journal, showed that women with neck and shoulder pain that had more mental stress, had higher sensitivity to pain in their sensory nerves than women who did not have as much mental stress. This is a big indicator that mental stress contributes to neck pain. Also, a study done at the Center for Musculoskeletal Research in Sweden actually showed that the autonomic nerves are involved in stress related neck pain. They found that relaxation techniques changed the reaction of the autonomic nervous system and gave the patients relief from their neck pain.

But wait a minute though, couldn't there be other problems besides mental stress causing neck pain? This is obviously the case in some instances, but many times blaming structural problems for neck pain is a mis-diagnosis. By structural problem I mean any type of degeneration or biomechanical dysfunction at the spinal structure level of your neck. Not fractures or tumors, but things like disc bulges, arthritis etc. Structural problems causing pain is actually what I was taught in school studying to be a doctor of chiropractic. However, my experience and the research told me something different. What I saw in my practice was that patient's structural problems with their necks did not always conform to the level of pain they had. Some of my patients complained of severe neck pain and their x-rays and/or MRI's showed very little structural problems and some of my other patients had no neck complaints and they had pretty severe structural problems with their necks. Then I learned about some research that showed that structural problems in the spine do not necessarily correlate with pain problems. One of the more famous studies regarding this was in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 1994. It reported finding spinal disc bulges and protrusions, in other words structural problems, on MRI images in sixty-four of ninety-eight men and women who had NEVER had back pain. Also, doctors at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, reported that they saw no correlation between back pain and people with arthritis of their spine. And, on top of that, the University of Copenhagen compared x-rays of patients with low back pain with those who had no low back pain and found no difference in the levels of degeneration or structural problems. This research may be focused on the back, but it's still your spine and, trust me, your neck is a part of your spine.

The idea that neck pain is an autonomic problem related to mental stress is well established. What's not so well known is the precise mechanism. What happens with chronic neck pain is that mental stress activates the autonomic nervous system and causes your neck to hurt by reducing oxygen to your neck. The May, 1988, issue of the medical journal Pain showed that autonomic nerve activity was involved in low oxygen levels and chronic pain in the muscles. And, in 1986 an article in the Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology showed decreased oxygen levels in areas of chronic muscle pain.

One of the more interesting aspects of neck pain caused by mental stress is the research that shows that the inhibition of expressing stressful thoughts might actually be what is causing the pain. Research published in the Journal of Behavioral Therapy in 1994 showed that people who inhibited the expression of angry feelings had a higher rate of reporting intense pain and exhibiting pain behavior.

Is the solution to autonomic caused neck pain to become a mean person who always expresses their anger? Or, maybe relief could be found in becoming an enlightened master who has no mental stress? Neither one of these "remedies" seems very feasible. Fortunately, there is a third choice that has been shown to work in clinical situations. I call it information therapy.

One of the clinical studies published in the sept/oct 2007 issue of the peer reviewed journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, showed that information therapy works. This is great news because the fact that you can relieve autonomic caused neck pain with mental techniques eliminates the need for expensive therapy, drugs, injections, ice packs, stretches, exercises or any external intervention for that matter. Most people can get rid of their chronic neck pain by using information to reprogram the central control system (subconscious mind) that sends signals through the autonomic nervous system and causes their neck pain. You can still have mental stress without the neck pain as long as you stop the autonomic nerves from causing a physical reaction in your neck.

A big question you might have right now is: If this knowledge is so great why isn't it widely known or used by other doctors? The simple answer to that is obvious, there is little to no money to be made by giving people information and techniques they can do themselves. Let's face it, the health-care industry makes money on sick people visiting doctors, taking medicine and buying expensive treatments. It doesn't make money on people who can treat themselves without any medical intervention.

The good news is, if you or someone you know is suffering from chronic neck pain, relief might just be found in information therapy.