A Complicated Case of Neck And Back Pain

Highlights from our Radio Show

I am 60 years old, I am a concert pianist and 15-20 years ago I had numbness in my hand, it was serious enough for me to go check it out, it was effecting my playing, one thing lead to another, I went to a specialist and the next thing was a suggestion of surgery. I went in for a cervical laminectomy (in the neck), when they opened my up they found an enlarged thyroid, they closed me up and sent me home, I came back a week later and they did both surgeries one after the other where they removed 60% of my thyroid and did the laminectomy.

A year later, I had to have a hysterectomy because of other complications. In the process of this I found out I had mono and dealt with unbelievable fatigue and pain and since then it has lead to one health situation to another.

Dr. Darrow: All the things you are telling me I think can be dealt with efficiently. Where do you have pain?

Caller: When I talk about pain, it is from my head to my toes, specifically it is in my neck into my very lower back. Last year I went for therapy, a lot of therapy because I could not sit.

Dr. Darrow: When you come in for a consultation, I would have to examine you and look for the “hot spots.” Most likely in your neck and low back you probably have some areas that are actually sprained (please read Iliolumbar Ligament Sprain or Herniated Disc?) even though you had a laminectomy in the neck, there is probably a left over soft tissue issue that is hyperirritable and can stay like that for a life time unless it is treated. So what we do is strengthen the area with Prolotherapy and hopefully get rid of your pain.

Because of your age, your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone are probably deficient, you would do a blood test for that, your adrenal glands may not be function is terms of producing cortisol. Your thyroid is probably not very functional since a great percentage of it was removed.

Caller: I take natural hormone and natural thyroids

Dr. Darrow: Okay, we would would check those levels especially checking the Free T3 and Free T4 – your fatigue and low energy may be a clue that your thyroid is not very functional.

Going further would would put you on nutritional program to reduce Inflammation.
Read more about nutrition and inflammation

Prolotherapy Performed On The Neck

Critical Life Changes and Neck/Shoulder Pain. A Connection?

Researchers writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health say that “Life events and critical life changes are of importance for the risk of neck/shoulder pain…”

Skillgate E, Vingard E, Josephson M, Theorell T, Alfredsson L. Life events and the risk of low back and neck/shoulder pain of the kind people are seeking care for: results from the MUSIC-Norrtalje case-control study. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2007 Apr;61(4):356-61.

The researchers concluded: “Life events and critical life changes are of importance for the risk of neck/shoulder pain of the kind that people are seeking care for. The study provides useful information for clinical practice and for future aetiological research on neck/shoulder pain.”

Neck Pain

After low back pain, neck pain is probably one of the most frequent problems we see in the office that Prolotherapy is often successful in healing.

Aside from having neck pain, patients may also complain of associated symptoms like headaches, jaw pain, irritable bowel syndrome, Barre-Lieou Syndrome with associated facial pain, ear pain, vertigo, tinnitus, loss of voice, or hoarseness.

One reason neck pain is so prevalent is that the weight of the head is not proportionate to the strength and size of the neck. Often times, laxity in the ligaments create pain down the arms, when most doctors think there is a radiculopathy, needing surgery.

I can’t remember one instance that I have recommended neck surgery. And be careful if you have pain down an arm which has been diagnosed as coming from a herniated disc. Prolotherapy injection treatment has been successful in ending the neck pain and the arm pain, no matter what the diagnosis is.

Case Study: One of my patients came to me seeking pain relief from headaches. His surgeon told him that he had a herniated disc on the right side of his neck, and that without surgery, he would have terrible headaches the rest of his life. The headaches, however, were on the left side of the bottom of his head. When I touched his head (the occiput) he jumped, letting me know the headaches were coming from a sprain of the muscle attachments to the bottom of his head, and not from a herniated disc on the other side. After Prolotherapy treatment, the intensity of his head and neck pain is greatly diminished, and he is no longer taking anti-inflammatory medications.

Discussions from our Radio Show on Neck Pain:

Morning Neck Pain

Caller: I wake up in the morning with really bad neck pain, the pain is on the sides of my neck and I can’t turn my head right or left. I have tried different sleeping positions, different pillows, but that doesn’t help.

Dr. Darrow: Typically when someone describes this type of pain, it is usually a sprain of the neck muscles that attached to the bone. Something people live with, sometimes all their lives, but it is something that can be easily fixed with Prolotherapy. We put a needle right into that spot, where the muscles attach to the bone. The Prolotherapy injections thicken up the tissue, it stimulates the body naturally to produce more Collagen and makes a better connection (like spot welding) of the muscle to the bone. Very often the pain goes away.

Caller: Is it a big needle?

Dr. Darrow: No, it is a very small needle and we use an anesthetic before hand so you don’t feel anything.

Most people who think they are going to have a problem with needles don’t. I hear it all the time from “first timers,” they say, “I am afraid of needles” but when they have their treatment they do just fine and they come back for more treatment!

Bone Spurs

Caller: I have according to X-rays, spurs in my upper spine and my neck and also a slightly slipped disc, I am wonder if Prolotherapy can help me.

Dr. Darrow: Do you have pain down your arms?

Caller: No.

Dr. Darrow: Ok, then I don’t think you will have a problem with the spurs, the spurs are a signal to us that the vertebrae, more specifically the ligaments that attach them together are loose so you have instability in the spine. The spurs are growth of bone that the body does in order stabilize the vertebrae.

What we can do with the Prolotherapy is so simple, we just start an inflammatory response that starts the growth of collagen, thickens those ligaments, tights up the vertebrae so there is less instability and there is no need for the spurs to continue growing and typically it is then that the pain goes away.

It is very good news that you do not have pain in your arms because that is complicating factor.

Is Cracking My Neck Okay?

Caller: I have chronic neck and shoulder pain. What I do to help it is rotate my head and crack my neck because it helps relieve pressure, what is your feeling on that?

Dr. Darrow: I would leave that (neck cracking) up to a professional to do if you need to have that done because you are stretching out your ligaments in order to get that “crack” or pop. Ligaments are in a sense like rubber bands, they hook bones to bones and they do get stretched out.

When the ligaments in the neck and spine get stretched out, that can cause chronic subluxation. This is where the vertebrae slip out of proper position and create pressure and irritate the spinal nerves.

Prolotherapy in my opinion is perfect for this because what Prolotherapy does is strengthen tendons and ligaments which are the connections between bones and muscles and bones and bones.

I can tell you for myself I use to have terrible neck pain, it felt like a dagger in the bottom of my neck on the side. I would turn my neck from side to side it was loud enough that you could hear it on the other side of the room, something we call crepitus, a grinding noise, I had Prolotherapy in my neck four times and that was it.

Gluteus, Hip, and Neck Pain

Discussions from our Radio Show:

Caller: I have been having this pain in my hip right where my gluteus and my hip are, and it is really sharp, hot, piercing pain, and I have been told that it is related to a pain I get in the nape of my neck, can you explain to me why I am having this type of pain?

Dr. Darrow: In both places you mean?

Caller: That is what I have been told from one of my doctors.

Dr. Darrow: Well the reason that it could be related is that the spine, if you hurt one end of it, the other end can have a reaction from it. So very often we find people have neck pain and sometimes the neck pain will go away and reappear into the lower back, or vice versa, so it is hard to know without (examining) you.

You can have hypolordosis or loss of lordosis, (lordosis meaning the curve) and if it effects the upper back or the lower back, that means it can affect the neck also.

The fact that you are calling this a piercing type pain is a good thing because it is localized, meaning that it is probably not from a pinched nerve it is probably just mechanical back pain which can be fixed by Prolotherapy.

The pain in the hip near the gluteus, that really is where the pelvis attaches to the vertebrae in the back, it is not really the hip, people call it the hip, hip joint pain is usually felt in the front of the body, in the groin area.