Neck Pain: What is it?

Neck pain is a very common sign but is sometimes overlooked, so we easily tend to think of torticollis, false movements or poor posture, doctors, them resonate differently. It all depends if it is acute pain or chronic pain
Neck pain is called "neck" and may involve the neck, shoulders and even the upper part of the body. However, many causes and signs experienced by the patient depend mainly if it is a spinal damage, ligament, muscle or nerve.

Neck pain is more common in women.

The spine of the neck consists of 7 vertebrae, named C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6 and C7. As the rest of the spine, the vertebrae are separated by intervertebral discs, and enveloped by various musculoskeletal structures such as tendons, muscles, and ligaments. All conditions of the different structures can be the source of neck pain or neck pain.

The causes of neck pain are searched according to the characteristics of pain: location, mode of onset, duration, acute or chronic, worsening or triggering factors, calming factors ... The pain may be accompanied by other signs such as:

- The limitation of neck movement

- A stiff, tingling

- Dizziness, vomiting

- Headaches

- Fever

However, the causes are not the same for acute pain and chronic pain. Chronic pain is usually pain that persisted for several weeks. In this case, you should think about the causes operating in a chronic fashion.

However, the diagnosis should be consistent with the evidence presented by the patient from the pain. Every disease and condition below have their specific signs that define them. Thus, the only physician is able to diagnose during a medical consultation.

When neck pain, the most common causes are:

Some diseases can also cause pain in the neck, these situations are not frequent enough, however, doctors fail in any of these diseases in order not to miss a serious condition:

- Meningitis

- Angina

- Sore throat: epiglottitis, laryngitis

- Shoulder-hand syndrome

- Thyroid Disease

- Mumps

- Lymph Nodes

The management of pain depend mainly causes, others may require more specialized treatment, and some benign be corrected by simple measures to be adopted (eg poor posture).