Whenever someone experiences neck pain, they may jump to the worst conclusions. Maybe you begin to fear that your neck pain is indicative of something more sinister, like a need for brain surgery or some other kind of drastic and terrifying treatment. The reality is that many people’s spines just naturally deteriorate over time. Instead of worrying about all the worst case scenarios, the best thing that you can do to help ensure that your spine and your neck are in good health is visit an expert neurosurgeon. The team at Boulder Neurological and Spine Associates knows just how important high quality treatment can be. They also know that good treatment means using the latest technology and means treating patients as individuals rather than test subjects. When you keep this in mind, doctors don’t rush into surgery and instead are better equipped to assess your individual needs. That’s why the team at Boulder Neurological and Spine Associates is such a high quality team and why you can really count on them to do right by you.

Considering all the degenerative disc diseases that impact people as they age, it is reasonable to expect that over time our necks will degenerate and feel less than their best. With this in mind, we can approach spine treatment and neck surgeries with a thoughtful and less frightened approach. These degenerative spine conditions particularly among the cervical vertebra is quite common, and there are many symptoms that can let you know that this might be something you are experiencing. Instead of becoming afraid of the pain, it can be helpful to approach pain as your body attempting to communicate something with you. Whether you have a herniated disc or have experienced some kind of injury that has put undue pressure on your nerves and neck, your body is trying to communicate with you when you experience neck pain. In addition to pain specifically in the neck, experiencing pain in the arm or around the shoulder blades as well as weakness and perhaps numbness in those areas can also indicate that there is something not quite right. Similar to a patient who needs sciatica treatment, this kind of burning and impact through the arm (not isolated to the neck) can simply indicate that a herniated disc is hitting a nerve and causing pain throughout the region.

Other kinds of problems that people often experience when there is pain in this area include bone spurs on the vertebra or along the spinal canal. This can can stenosis, which is just a narrowing of the spinal canal. That puts a lot of excess pressure on the spinal cord and thus can result in the same feelings of neck pain or weakness. In severe cases, this can also cause loss of bladder or bowel control. Other symptoms could be similar to that of Parkinson’s Disease, with trouble buttoning shirts or opening jars. When this is the case, it is even more important to seek treatment so that you can get back to living your daily life without these problems!