Neck Cracking – Why Does it Happen? Here’s What You Should Know

CRACK! Hearing this very distinct sound may be somewhat common for you, especially if you actually crack your neck yourself. You may not even notice how often you do it in a day, since it may already be second nature to you to crack your neck.

Cracking your neck has been around longer than sliced bread, ice cream, and the Crusades combined. That said, most people don’t understand why they crack their necks, how it happens, and why they feel the need to do it. They’re not aware of the fact that cracking one’s neck may be a sign that they have underlying health issues that need to be addressed with a visit to the doctor’s office.

Read on to find out more about why neck cracking happens, as well as exactly what it can do to and for you:

Understanding neck-cracking from a technical standpoint

Neck-cracking is the same as cracking all your other joints, such as your fingers, wrists, back, and ankles! The technical explanation for neck cracking is that it’s a sound that’s a byproduct of loosening different joints in your body with a quick motion, which can result in the sound of simultaneous pops. However, neck-cracking does sound a lot better and more palatable than “neck popping.”

The urge to crack your neck can be caused by a variety of reasons

Certain health issues such as neck pain, escaping gas, and arthritis, and even normal, everyday movements can make you want to crack your neck. But such issues need to be addressed, so it would be good for you to schedule a much-needed appointment with a doctor in order to resolve them. Simply cracking your neck won’t make arthritis, neck pain, or escaping gas go away.

If you don’t want to do it yourself, there’s always someone who can do it for you

A professional who takes care of others who crack their necks is called a chiropractor. Chiropractors are expertly trained in the art of releasing pressure from your joints smoothly without the risk of breaking anything important, like your neck. Sessions scheduled with chiropractors often include a consultation, which is followed by them conducting an orchestra of cracking.

When should you see a doctor?

You should see a doctor about your neck cracking when you experience certain symptoms, such as (but not limited to) the following: loss of strength, persistent pain, loss of feeling (or numbness), limited mobility, stiff neck, or if you feel anything that may seem out of the ordinary for you. Do NOT attempt to cure these issues on your own, especially with even more neck-cracking. Instead, consult with a trusted physician as he or she will be best-equipped to find solutions to any problems that might arise because of your habit.

Remember, crack in moderation: whether it’s frequency, force, or both! Tebby Chiropractic and Sports Medicine Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

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The Ins and Outs of Upper Crossed Syndrome

If you’ve never heard of upper cross syndrome, it’s quite common in our world today, and there are a few signs and symptoms that come with it. The syndrome occurs when the muscles in your neck, shoulders, and chest become deformed due to poor posture.

The name comes from the weak and overly tense muscles throughout your shoulder and chest areas that are arranged in a crisscross pattern. If you have the syndrome, the muscles in the back of your neck are getting worked incredibly hard, which will lead to unnecessary stress and strain. Your chest’s major and minor pectoralis muscles will shorten and tighten since they’ll get used to moving into their new, albeit improper, position. Some of the muscles that are meant to be worked with the aforementioned moving muscles may also weaken because they won’t be used as intended.

Causes

The culprit is a poor, hunched posture along with an inactive lifestyle. If you sit or stand for long periods of time with your head tilted forward, you’re actually training your muscles to stay this way. Activities that contribute to this include driving, using a computer, playing on your cell phone, reading, and workouts like biking, lifting weights, and swimming. If you want to avoid further injury, you should visit a chiropractor so that they can help you create a personal healing plan that fits your body.

Signs

If you suspect that you might have this syndrome, there are a few telltale signs you can look for. Upper cross syndrome is characterized by a constantly forward-leaning head. You will feel stiffness in your neck and back as well as chronic pain and muscle damage. If your spine starts to develop an unnatural curve where your neck is supposed to curve in as your upper back curves out, you might see a hunch in your back. Your shoulders will slump forward, and your shoulder blades will stick out instead of lining straight down your back.

Symptoms

Some of the symptoms that come with upper crossed syndrome can really impact our bodies and cause major discomfort. These symptoms may include fatigue, headaches, pain after prolonged sitting, tingling or pain throughout your arms, tightness in your neck and chest, tension on your back or a weak front side, soreness in your shoulder blades, jaws, lower back, and limited range of motion in your upper body.

Treatment

For treatment, suffers must see a chiropractor. He or she will know what exercises and physical therapy you’ll need to correct this syndrome. You may feel some pain and discomfort in the beginning, but it’s important to stretch and get used to it. You will heal a lot faster under a chiropractor’s care than if you just exercised alone. After any adjustments, your joints may feel a lot more aligned, finally allowing your muscles to relax and stretch accordingly. After a little while, you can start getting into deeper stretches.

Prevention

Prevention is always better than cure, so you want to try your hardest to avoid activities that require you to sit with your head forward for any amount of time. If you must sit at a computer all day for work, try to make a conscious decision to maintain proper posture.

Other ways you can prevent upper cross syndrome is by getting at least 30 minutes of cardio every day, stretching and exercising those muscles in your neck, shoulders, back, and chest. You can also try keeping your books, phones, and even steering wheels at eye level.

Tebby Chiropractic and Sports Medicine Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

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Why Good Posture Is Important For Your Health

It is common knowledge that regular exercise and a healthy diet are essential for overall health. That being said, not many people acknowledge how posture can have a significant impact on one’s health as well.

Do You Have Good Posture?

Unfortunately, most people don’t pay enough attention to their posture, and they have no clue whether their posture is good or bad. To determine whether you have good posture, see the checklist below:

– Your body weight is evenly distributed between both of your feet

– Both your knees are even and pointed straight in front of you

– Your hips are even

– Your shoulders are even

– When relaxing your arms, they lay at the sides with your elbows even

– You have strong core muscles

– Your spine has the right curvature

– Your chin is parallel with the floor

Why Is Proper Posture Important?

Proper posture is vital because it helps your balance and lowers the physical strain inside your body. It can also boost your energy, improve your overall appearance, and increase your confidence. In addition, good posture allows your organs and nervous system to function properly. Moreover, poor posture can lead to injury, pain, discomfort, and wear and tear on the body, leading to a range of conditions such as arthritis, degeneration, and subluxation. Therefore, if you notice that your posture needs improving, make sure that you take action to correct it as soon as possible. To delay the progression of your bad posture and achieve proper posture, you need to know how you got your poor posture in the first place. Here are some common reasons why you have poor posture:

– Tightness in the muscles

– Weak core muscles

– Habits of slouching

– Pregnancy

– Being overweight

– Improper footwear

If poor posture is left untreated, it can lead to something more serious over time, causing problems on your spine and nervous system. Moreover, you will have to endure the pain and discomfort every day until your posture is corrected.

How Can a Chiropractic Doctor Help?

Chiropractic is a great way to treat various types of posture conditions, including:

– Kyphosis, also known as a hunchback, is a condition where your upper back curves too far forward, causing a hunch. This condition often comes with pain and stiffness in the back.

– Flat back is a condition where the natural curve in the back has straightened out, involving symptoms such as constant back or leg pain and difficulty standing up straight.

– Hyperlordosis, also known as swayback, is when there is an excessive spine curvature in the back, impacting the mobility and causing pain in your back.

– Forward neck, or text neck, is a condition in which your head leans forward from the shoulders. For every inch that your head is leaning forward, there are approximately ten extra pounds of stress put on your neck, back, shoulders, and spine. These are also the areas that you will feel pain, stiffness, and tension.

By going to a chiropractic doctor, your poor posture can be properly treated. Through a healing plan tailored to your condition and body, you can naturally return to good posture.

Tebby Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

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Things to Know About Disc Injuries and Chiropractic Care

Many people misunderstand what a slipped disc is. Its name often results in people assuming that the condition involves a spinal disc physically slipping out of place. However, the injury is nothing like that.

Medical care professionals refer to slipped discs as Lumbar Disc Herniation. If you have never heard of the term, don’t worry. Here are a few things that you should know about disc injuries and how chiropractic care can help:

Definition of a disc

Our spinal cords are constructed of many bony blocks, also known as vertebrae. The spine is not a long rigid stick in our backs. It can bend and twist as we move. The reason why our spines are so flexible is because of the shock absorbers or discs. These discs are situated between each vertebra to hold a chain of them together. Without them, your spine would be incomplete.

The truth about a slipped disc

Although the term is called ‘slipped disc,’ there is no slipping in this case. Discs are strongly attached to the vertebrae and it is impossible for them to come out of place. The issues that may occur actually involve wearing, tearing, splitting, and herniating. If you encounter pain in your spine, you cannot always diagnose it as a disc injury. In fact, discs are even stronger than your vertebrae. When normal people with healthy spines get compression injuries, the damage is most likely due to a fracture of a vertebra. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that you cannot get disc injuries at all.

Facts about a disc injury

The primary cause of disc injuries is posture and actions. People who repeatedly lift, bend, and twist their backs have a higher chance of causing damage to their discs. Office workers who sit for extended periods of time are also at an increased risk of suffering from disc injuries. When you fail to take care of your back, the fibers of your annulus can rip apart and cause leakage in the center of your discs. This type of damage is called disc herniations.

When you feel pain around your body parts, it is the result of an inflammatory reaction of leaking material. It could also be because of pressure being put on the spinal nerve that is located next to your discs. If the damage occurs in your lower back, you will suffer from leg pain or sciatica. If the discs in your neck are injured, you will feel pain in your arms.

Treatment of disc injury

You can assess the pain yourself and make a decision on how to get it treated. If the pain is unbearable, surgery might be on the table. If you are still able to go about your life, however, treatment won’t be as invasive. That being said, the disc damage is not going to heal by itself. It is best to contact a chiropractor and schedule treatment. Since slipped discs is a spine-related problem, no one is more suitable for the job than a chiropractor. They are experts in spinal manipulation. You can count on them to take away your pain. Keep in mind that you might have to take multiple visits to the clinic. The duration of recovery will vary as it depends on the severity of your condition.

Tebby Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

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How Chiropractic Services For Lower Back Pain Can Save You Money

Everyone will experience lower back pain at some point in their lives. Lower back pain can be caused by many different things, including repeated heavy lifting, sitting for too long, poor posture, old age, among others.

When the pain is left untreated, it can worsen to the point of interfering with your daily activities, restricting you from doing things that you used to love such as going to the gym. This is why it is imperative that you seek treatment as soon as the pain emerges.

However, it is important to note that the cost of treatment for lower back pain is quite expensive, and certainly, not everyone can afford it. One option that is more affordable than medical treatment is chiropractic treatment. This article will discuss how you can save money by seeking chiropractic services to treat your lower back pain.

 

Chiropractic Treatment Versus Medical Treatment

By going for chiropractic treatment instead of medical treatment, you can save a considerable amount of money. One study on insured patients suggested that chiropractic treatment for lower back pain saved around forty percent of healthcare expenses as opposed to traditional medical treatment.

Today, there are still too many doctors who are stuck in the routine of providing prescriptions to ease the symptoms of lower back pain when they should be treating the root of the problem instead.

Unfortunately, most doctors receive a commission or other forms of incentive for selling these drugs to their patients. While prescription painkillers can alleviate lower back pain to a certain extent, the effects are merely short-term. Moreover, when your body develops a tolerance to these painkillers, you will have to increase your dose, which will only benefit your doctor even further.

Thus, instead of dealing with pain with only prescription drugs, you should find another way to teat the underlying cause of your lower back pain. You can do this by seeking the services of a licensed chiropractor.

How Can Chiropractors Help With Lower Back Pain

As stressed before, the majority of doctors often overlook the true cause of your lower back pain and only deal with your symptoms. Chiropractors, on the other hand, will seek to determine and eliminate the underlying cause of your lower back problem. They will thoroughly conduct an examination and discuss your history in detail so that your condition can be properly diagnosed.

After that, they will provide some recommendations on how to treat the cause of your pain. You may be suggested to go through sessions of spinal adjustment, spinal decompression, or a combination of both. These sessions could potentially be the key to eliminating your lower back pain for good. The chiropractic services such as these will cost you much less than all the prescription drugs that have to be refilled constantly.

Living With Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain can cause you to miss your work more often than what you would care to admit. The fact is that severe back pain can make it difficult for an individual to move around in the house.

This means that going out to work is almost out of the question. By pushing yourself too hard, your condition will worsen and your risk of sustaining an injury will also increase. Therefore, it is very important that you receive proper treatment and wait until your symptoms subside before going back to work.

Tebby Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

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Three Ways to Treat Bulging Discs and Relieve Backpain – Our Guide

Have you been experiencing back pain lately? If so, there’s a possibility that it’s more than just a pain that can be corrected with improved posture. You will need to see a physical therapist or chiropractor if you suspect that you are suffering from one particular back problem — a bulging disc!

What is a bulging disc? A bulging disc is a common occurrence that causes back pain. It occurs when your spinal disc compresses against an adjacent nerve root. The disc eventually pushes out of its normal place and starts impinging on the nearby nerves of your spine, thus causing back pain.

Having bulging discs is quite alarming, particularly if you’ve been taking your back for granted. Not only will it put you in a great deal of discomfort, but it will also take a toll on your spine, affecting your functioning and quality of life as a whole. If you’re in such a situation, these are some therapeutic options that you can resort to help correct disc problems and their underlying effects.

See a Chiropractor for Spinal Adjustments

If you have a bulging disc, you will need to see a chiropractor for spinal adjustments. A chiropractor is a practitioner specializing in the manipulative treatment of a misalignment of the musculoskeletal system – the spine, in particular.

The first thing that your chiropractor will do is diagnose the cause of your back pain. He or she will determine the type of bulging disc you’re suffering from. More than just determining the type of problem, he or she will also dig further as to what the underlying causes are.

From there, your chiropractor will then perform targeted spinal adjustments to help realign the spinal discs and prevent protrusion into the spinal canal. These adjustments include flexion-distraction, muscle stimulation, physiotherapy, supplementation, and at-home stretches, exercises or treatments.

How effective is chiropractic treatment? Studies show chiropractic treatment is deemed to be an effective way to address spinal problems and back pain. This treatment has been well-established for treating symptoms of bulging discs, including sciatic nerve pain, stiff neck, and chronic lower back pain.

 

Visit a Physical Therapist

Apart from seeing a chiropractor, you can go and visit a physical therapist. A physical therapist will help you move around and work as you normally would, minimizing any pain that may arise from a bulging disc. Your physical therapist will also assign you specific exercises and stretches to do at home in order to improve your range of motion, strength, and flexibility.

One recommended therapy or postural correction that you can resort to is the Egoscue. Egoscue is a series of gentle, targeted exercises that help correct musculoskeletal dysfunctions and compensations that put the spinal discs at risk for injuries.

Your physical therapist will also teach you types of exercises and correct postural forms. Once you learn all these, you can continue to practice at home to keep your back muscles strong and prevent another injury.

 

Work on Correcting Your Posture

Apart from doing physical therapy exercises at home, maintaining proper posture is the key to treating bulging discs and relieving back pain.

Proper posture also applies to those who are at greater risk of having a bulging disc problem due to a sedentary lifestyle and a physically challenging work lifestyle.

Whether you are at work or at home, it’s important to focus on good posture, to stretch frequently, and to get up and move around. If you’re in the office, it’s good to take breaks every 20-30 minutes to avoid sitting for long hours.

Even during your leisure time, try to do specific stretches or light isometric exercises that will strengthen your spine and core, stretch your legs, and loosen up your shoulders and neck.

Tebby Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

 

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Reasons Why You Should Have Chiropractic Treatment After a Car Accident

Car accident injuries can range from minor to drastic, depending on the severity of the crash. Many expenses, including that of car repair and medical treatments, will be incurred in quite a short amount of time.

Getting yourself checked out is crucial, even if you think that all you have is a headache. Not all injuries present themselves as bloody, gory scenes. You might seem ok on the outside, but it’s important to rule out internal injuries. That growing lower back pain might be an indication of something bigger. Here are a few reasons why you should have chiropractic treatment after getting into a car accident:

It can relieve back stiffness

You might think that back stiffness is a small problem, but it is still better to get rid of it completely. When your back is stiff, it will be impossible for you to stretch out or sit comfortably. It isn’t uncommon for people who have been involved in major car accidents to suffer from whiplash.

This results in stiffness in the lower back and upper back that sometimes runs all the way up to their neck. Consequently, they are unable to turn to their side, let alone bend down to pick up things. All of these injuries are caused by tissue damage to muscles around the spine. Chiropractic treatment can make that stiffness disappear with the help of spinal manipulation.

It can treat numbness

Numbness might not seem like a big deal. However, if the dullness in sensation is caused by a car accident, you will want to get treatment for it. This can occur when your joints shift to compress nerves that runs from your lower back to the posterior side of your legs.

You may experience a tingling feeling or numbness in those areas. If you do not seek treatment, you may eventually suffer from permanently damaged nerves. To avoid this, visit a chiropractic practice to have a professional align your joints, muscles, and bones. When everything is back in place, you will no longer feel numb.

Sometimes, you might not feel any stiffness or numbness in your body at all. However, if you find that it is more difficult to move around than usual, do not fool yourself into thinking that you are okay. The absence of visible injury doesn’t mean that your body is in perfect condition. Difficulty in movement is one of the minor injuries that may result from a car accident. This is a problem that a professional chiropractor can help with.

It can reduce sharp pains

It isn’t uncommon to experience sharp and sudden pain after being in a car accident. This is a sign that something is wrong in your spinal area. It could be a result of pinched nerves or damage in the areas close to your spine. Chiropractic treatment can reduce the pressure in those damaged parts to reduce and eventually eliminate your pain.

It can make chronic headaches go away

Everyone experiences headaches from time to time. Many people fail to recognize pain in their heads as a red flag after car accidents, simply popping a few painkillers to cope. If you have been suffering from chronic headaches for a few days, it is advised that you go see a chiropractor as soon as possible.

A neverending headache might not just be a result of stress or sleep deprivation, but potentially an issue that originated from a misalignment of your neck, shoulders, or back. A chiropractor will be able to manipulate your spine and relieve pinched nerves. After the treatment, you will be headache-free!

Tebby Clinic provides chiropractic services in Charlotte, NC. Get in touch today to see how we can help with your back pain.

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