A neck injury can adversely affect your quality of life and hinder your ability to do routine tasks. From affecting your ability to sleep to constraining your range of motion, neck pain can cause great discomfort to many patients. Personal injuries such as slips and falls, auto accidents, and workplace injuries can all contribute to chronic neck pain.
And given the long-term complications it may cause, including muscle degeneration, immobility, and headaches, you should take neck pain seriously. If you are feeling pain or discomfort each time you move your neck, and the situation isn’t letting up after a few days, you should seek neck injury treatment to find the underlying cause of this discomfort.
If you want to get expert neck injury treatment in Georgia, our experienced and highly-trained physicians can help. The team at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics are conversant with treating neck injuries and can offer ongoing pain management. We can address all forms of acute and chronic neck pain and aid patients in getting long-term relief.
If you are experiencing neck pain or other related complications following a personal injury in Georgia, please reach out to our neck specialists at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics today at 678-929-4494 to book an appointment.
What Is Neck Pain?
The neck consists of a network of nerves, muscles, bones, and joints. The neck’s primary role is to offer support and mobility to the head. Any moment there is an issue with the muscles, bones, joints, or nerves in the neck, it can result in neck pain. Therefore, neck pain can be any soreness or discomfort experienced in the neck area.
Neck pain is also associated with headaches and pain in the hands, shoulders, and arms. Given that the neck is part of the spinal cord, any irritation may result in pain in some parts of your body, including your legs. Neck pain may arise for a host of reasons, including a slip and fall, contact sports injury, or sleeping poorly.
Generally, neck pain can dissipate after a couple of days, but if it continues, it can be an indication of serious neck problems. Reach out to the injury experts at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics for prompt diagnosis and treatment if you are experiencing persistent neck pain.
What Are Common Symptoms of a Neck Injury?
Neck injuries may exhibit symptoms in other sections of the body in addition to the neck area. Identifying the symptoms affiliated with a neck injury is integral for effective treatment.
Common symptoms include:
- Headaches: Neck pain is frequently associated with headaches, especially tension headaches, where you feel as though a band is constricting around your head.
- Radicular Pain: This is characterized by a sharp, shooting pain that emanates down the arm, and it may also cause tingling or numbness.
- Trouble Lifting or Gripping Objects: Neck pain can make it difficult to perform daily tasks such as holding a doorknob or lifting a bag, which can impair your functionality.
- Cervical Radiculopathy: This complication is brought on by compression of a nerve root in the cervical spine, which results in neurological symptoms such as tingling, numbness, or weakness in the arms.
- General Soreness: It is typical to have a persistent soreness in the neck region that gets worse with touch or movement.
- Sharp Pain: Another sign to look out for is localized acute pain, particularly while tilting the head.
- Stiff Neck: A restricted motion range whereby turning the head becomes an unpleasant task is usually a sign of a neck injury.
If you are exhibiting any of these symptoms, it could be a result of a neck injury. If neck pain symptoms exacerbate, you may find it challenging to do standard activities like sleeping.
Don’t ignore the signs, and make a point of scheduling an appointment with the specialists at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics to get relief today. Knowing the exact symptoms you are experiencing can assist our physicians in coming up with a personalized treatment plan specifically for you.
What Are Common Causes of Neck Pain?
A broad range of medical complications and injuries can result in neck pain. Our neck pain experts at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics can address the following common cases.
- Injury: A range of injuries can result in neck pain. Accidents such as slips and falls, car accidents, or workplace accidents can all result in immediate and acute neck pain. Neck pain is also a common occurrence in contact sports.
- Aging: As you grow old, you may suffer from osteoarthritis or spinal stenosis, which may result in neck pain.
- Physical Strain: If you spend a prolonged period on your smartphone or working on your desk, it could result in muscle strain. Straining your neck muscles is fairly easy and can even happen by simply sleeping in the wrong position.
- Mental Stress: If you are suffering from psychological distress, it can constrict neck muscles and lead to neck pain and stiffness.
- Conditions Affecting Spinal Balance: If there are herniated discs or bone spurs in the neck vertebrae, the surrounding spinal nerves will be compressed and cause neck pain.
- Growths & Other Health Conditions: Various growths like cysts, tumors, and other health complications may result in neck pain.
Neck Injury Treatments at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics
Our neck specialists at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics understand that no two patients are the same, which is why we provide a broad range of treatments for different types of neck injuries. Our medical experts formulate a tailored treatment plan for every patient depending on the location of the neck pain, the existence of other medical complications, and a range of different factors.
Below are some of the neck injury treatments our experts at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics provide.
Medication Management
Neck pain can be managed by a range of medicines, including both over-the-counter medications and prescription drugs. The first treatment usually entails using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen, Motrin, or Advil. Our specialists may also give other nerve pain medications and muscle relaxants to offer relief from acute pain.
These medicines may offer immediate, although temporary, relief from severe symptoms, providing the platform for long-term treatment options.
Nerve Blocks
Nerve blocks work by hindering certain nerves from transmitting pain signals to the central nervous system (CNS), thereby offering pain relief. There are mainly two types of nerve blocks: nonsurgical and surgical.
When it comes to surgical nerve blocks, particular nerves are destroyed or cut off to hinder them from transmitting pain signals to the brain. This is usually permanent and is often done in extreme situations.
Non-surgical nerve blocks attain the same results by injecting an anesthetic around a cluster of nerves or targeted nerves. This provides temporary relief and only makes the area numb. Our specialists can perform both procedures.
Chiropractic Adjustments
Our physicians also provide chiropractic adjustments where they apply pressure on specific locations of the nerve to relax your muscles and offer relief from neck pain.
Spinal Cord Stimulator
Our specialists often recommend getting this treatment if you haven’t received relief from other treatments. They are implantable devices that prevent pain signals from getting transmitted to the brain.
Our medical specialists can calibrate the settings of these advanced tools, providing you with more explicit control over pain management. Getting a spinal cord stimulator could be a viable treatment option compared to more intrusive procedures such as spinal fusion or other types of spine surgery.
Radiofrequency Ablation
This minimally intrusive procedure uses heat given off by electrical currents to cut off painful nerve signals from getting to the central nervous system. This is a temporary relief and may last for nine months to two years.
Orthopedic Surgery
Orthopedic surgery is done when other treatment options have not been effective. Options available include disc replacement, laminoplasty, laminectomy, discectomy, and cervical spinal fusion.
Kyphoplasty
This is another minimally intrusive treatment that entails injecting quick-drying bone cement into vertebral compression fractures. The objective of this procedure is to restore bone strength and function while offering alleviation from severe neck pain.
Injections
If our diagnosis shows that your chronic neck pain is due to sensitive nerve compression, we may use certain injections like facet joint injections, epidural steroid injections, and medial branch blocks. Injections combine a steroid with a local anesthetic, which aids in offering pain relief and reducing inflammation.
Book Your Neck Injury Treatment in Georgia Today!
A neck injury can considerably decrease your quality of life. Accomplishing routine tasks can become an uphill endeavor, and the persistent pain can take a toll on you emotionally. If you are suffering from chronic neck pain, you should enlist neck pain specialists at Georgia Spine and Orthopaedics.
Our injury doctors provide various neck injury treatment options to alleviate your pain and get you back at your best. We have the expertise and resources to provide cutting-edge treatment that addresses the root cause of the problem and offers long-term relief.
Contact us at 678-929-4494 to book an appointment with our injury specialists!
