Neck Pain Relief and Upper-Back Relaxation in Asheville

Getting Beyond Neck and Upper-Back Pain to Living an Optimized Life!

Common scenarios for seeking care:

1. You’ve had this pain for a while and have seen other doctors to try and find a solution. You did some digging and found what wellness care research has confirmed for a long time.
2. You might be experiencing this pain for the first time and it’s alarming, so you’re seeking expert advice from a natural and holistic source.
3. You might have had this pain and while it resolved itself for a while, it has now returned. You’re now seeking more sustainable solutions.
4. You may have heard from a family member, a friend, or a colleague about our unique approach to helping people with this type of symptom.

Our Holistic Approach Looks Deeper Than Your Symptom Might Appear!

1. In understanding pain from a neurological perspective, it has been found through extensive research that pain is mostly an output signal from the brain. This means that the brain is interpreting stress in its environment (inside or out) and reacting to protect itself from that stressor.
2. The stress patterns that can take place in the spinal cord’s attachment sites to the vertebral column, can create global stress on the entire physiology, which can lead to various symptoms for different people.
3. Symptoms can usually be traced back to an area of subluxation or misalignment. These constricted regions in the body-mind can occur between adjacent vertebra, cranial bones, ribs or joints in the upper or lower extremities.
4. It is very rare that a physical symptom doesn’t have an emotional/mental element that goes along with it.

Neuroscience research has found that by calming the nervous system’s response to its defensive posturing and stress, the pain subsides considerably and the body’s natural mechanisms for self-healing are optimized.

How We Clear Your Neck Pain and Upper Back Tightness:

1. Check your posture and neurological tension and stress patterns. We’ll free up the midline stress through gentle and advanced tonal chiropractic. This will relax the body-mind considerably, allowing us to dive in deeper.
2. Evaluate and balance key joints throughout the skeletal system through Zero Balancing. This will integrate the relaxation response further and free up areas that are tight, bunched up and restricting natural energy currents.
3. Rule out stress in the organ system that can cause radiating pain to muscles and joints through the visceral-muscular reflexes. A common example is most people that experience a heart episode feel pain shooting down the left arm. Regarding neck pain, we want to rule out chemical stress on the parotid gland and in over stressed thyroid, heart, and lungs.

 Let’s dive into some of the physical aspects of neck and upper-back pain.

 Physical Keystone Areas We Check – where you might be subluxated or constricted:

1. The Occiput (lower skull bone) – This important landmark is one of the main anchoring sites for the entire spinal cord, just as a guitar string is anchored to the neck of the guitar. The tensions held at the occiput are commonly caused by being overly flexed (very common in our smartphone culture) or by being rotated or torqued, creating pain responses throughout the neck, upper back, and shoulder girdle.
2. The 1^st Vertebra “The Atlas” – This bone is one of the most important to clear out due to its proximity to the brainstem. When it is constricted, it can cause many symptoms besides neck pain. These can include loss of balance, dizziness, ringing in the ears, headaches, decreased breathing, uncoordinated heartbeats, among many others. Being overly concerned about the future can lead to a posturing at the Atlas, generally a pattern below our awareness akin to the posture we hold when “we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
3. The 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th Vertebrae – These upper- to mid-neck bones are freeing to get adjusted, as the person usually feels more in touch with their body. We tend to hold tension in these landmarks when we’re overly cerebral or heady. Think of it as so much energy is swirling in your head that it pops a fuse in your fuse box below it.
4. The 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th vertebrae – These lower neck bones are areas that tend to show up when we’re overly stressed, frustrated or angry. There’s a certain posturing that accompanies this distortion pattern and is sometimes associated with tension in the tailbone.
5. Upper Rib Case – The upper 6 pair of ribs are attached directly to the vertebral column and the breastplate. The upper 2 ribs have a unique shape and function, and are attached to the clavicle, or collarbone, as well as the lower neck and upper-back vertebra. The movement of all the joints that include these connections are vital to clear for the neck to move freely and uninhibited, while being important for respiration. A lot of neck pain stems from radiating pain from the ribs themselves, and can feel sharp and stabbing when it presents itself.
6. The Scapula or Wing bone – The wings are attached to the rib case by the vastness of the muscles of the upper back. When the wings don’t move properly, we tend to compensate by lifting our arms, especially overhead. These compensated movements can create unnecessary tension along the trapezius and lower neck and can distribute that tension as pain throughout the neck.

Let’s consider the emotional-mental aspects of neck pain as outlined in this article. See if you relate with the 5 common subjective “life experiences” or “stress pattern veils of perception

The key to your success

By helping you shift your focus from only achieving your desired outcome (make this pain go away!), to learning new skills and behaviors to grow and adapt to stress, you will find your goals met and even exceeded. As a culture, we are so focused on the pain that it distracts us from what else might be lurking underneath it.

We are committed to guiding you along a path to find freedom and ease!