Pain in the Cervical spine is a common issue.

Most people at some point in their life will be experiencing pain in the neck.

As always, when you're experiencing neck pain you need to figure out what is causing the issue. Through orthopedic testing, movement testing, and if needed additional imaging, we can usually figure out what is causing the pain.

A lot of times neck pain is actually a thoracic spine problem or a shoulder problem. When the surrounding mobile areas lose their ability to move the surrounding areas will pick up the slack.

Breathing is another big issue when it comes to cervical spine pain. If breathing is dysfunctional, a lot of the time the muscles on the side of the do the role of the Diaphragm. When this happens you see the upper chest rise and fall with no movement in the trunk or torso. When this happens the neck muscles end up really tense and tight leading to decreased mobility in the neck. When the neck muscles are doing all the heavy lifting for breathing, they cannot help stabilize the neck, head, and shoulders.