Are you wondering what the difference is between regular old neck pain and acute neck pain? Acute neck pain is characterized by a sudden, sharp pain in the cervical area of the spine, known as the neck. Now if you are like thousands, even millions of people, you have experienced acute neck pain at one point in your life. Have you ever turned your head suddenly, only to be confronted with a sharp, acute pain in your neck region? Some people often refer to this as a “kink” in the neck. Oftentimes this can happen after a poor night’s rest where the head and neck were in an abnormal position throughout the night. Of course, this is only one reason one might experience acute neck pain and there are many more other reasons.
Luckily, most bouts of acute neck pain will heal overtime, but one must wonder what caused the pain in the first place?
Causes of Acute Neck Pain
Unlike chronic neck pain which is characterized as long term, continuous neck pain, acute neck pain comes on strong and comes on quickly. Now the neck, shoulder and upper back are one of the most complex areas in the human body. Many bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments work in harmony to function properly.
Our bodies are very resilient- but only to a point. Think about what you do and the activities you perform on a daily basis. For me, my average day looks like this:
Wake up, eat breakfast in the kitchen, head to my computer in my office, sit for roughly a few hours at a time, eat lunch, sit back down to finish work, head to the gym or other exercise or outdoor activity, come home and relax on the sofa with my computer, book or television, go to bed.
What do you notice here? That’s a lot of sitting! And, we all do it everyday. It only makes sense that some muscles groups in the body, say the front of the body, become tight, while the muscles in the upper back become weak and stretched out of normal placement. Our neck muscles then become weak which causes the neck to now droop forward. These muscles imbalances in the body can cause something called a “postural dysfunction”.
These dysfunctions pull on the bones in the body which adds additional stress and strain on the discs in the upper back and neck. In the case of acute neck pain, it is important to address these muscle imbalances in order to restore balance in the upper back, neck and shoulders. Restoring balance will correct any postural dysfunction you may have that is causing the acute neck pain to happen.
If you would like to learn more about acute neck pain and also view a video that can teach you simple stretching technique to help alleviate your acute neck pain, please visit: https://losethebackpain.com/conditions/neck-pain-solutions.html
