The nerves supplying the upper cervical joints share a pathway with those supplying the scalp and the area behind the eye. That shared route is why an injured neck is experienced as a headache at the base of the skull, or as pressure behind one eye, and why treating the headache alone rarely holds.
It also explains the timing people describe: fine first thing, worse through the afternoon, worst after a long stretch at a screen. The joints and the deep muscles fatigue in a way that only shows up once they have been holding the head in one place for hours.
Pain confined to the neck and the top of the shoulder is a mechanical problem in the joints and the muscles. Pain that travels into the arm, with numbness or a weak grip, is a nerve root and a different plan entirely.
The examination separates them with rotation and extension range, arm reflexes, grip and sensation. Which of the two you have decides whether this is a course of therapy or a case that needs imaging and possibly an injection.
The metro is covered from Downtown Denver, Lowry, Central Park, Northglenn, Lakewood, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, SE Aurora and Southlands. Each runs Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and Acupuncture in the same building.
For a desk-driven neck, the practical question is which clinic you can reach at an hour that is not the end of a long day at a screen, because the examination reads differently when you arrive already loaded.
Where arm symptoms persist, the Pain Management physicians consider a cervical epidural steroid injection, or radiofrequency ablation of the facet joints once diagnostic blocks have confirmed them. Both are performed in office at Northglenn for the Denver metro.
Most major commercial plans are accepted and most Medicare Advantage plans are in network in Colorado. Benefits are checked before the first appointment.
Neck pain that began in a collision is billed to med-pay, a lien where an attorney is acting, or a health plan; work injuries run through the carrier. No referral is needed and appointments are usually available within the same week.
More about neck pain as a problem, and about Pain Management in Denver and Chiropractic care in Denver.
Every clinic below has Chiropractic, Physical Therapy, Acupuncture and Pain Management on one chart, so care can move between them without a new referral.
Downtown out through the north, west, south and east suburbs.
Academy, InterQuest and Tenderfoot cover the north, central and south of the city.
Harmony in Fort Collins and our Greeley clinic serve Larimer and Weld counties.
Across the Valley, from the West Valley through Phoenix to the East Valley.
Frequently. The nerves supplying the upper neck joints share a pathway with those supplying the scalp and behind the eye, so a neck problem is felt in the head.
When it is not improving after a couple of weeks, when it travels into an arm, when there is numbness or weakness, or when it followed a collision.
Because the deep neck muscles fatigue holding the head in one position, and the joints they protect start taking the load instead.
No. It is ordered when there is arm weakness or numbness, or when the pain is not settling on a reasonable course of care.
That points at a nerve root rather than a mechanical neck problem, and the plan changes — imaging comes forward and a cervical epidural steroid injection may be considered.
In office at our Northglenn clinic for the Denver metro, or at Lowry on specific days, performed by the physician who examined you.
Usually not for long. Restoring motion helps, but the deep neck flexors and shoulder blade muscles have to be retrained or it returns.
Any of them — Downtown, Lowry, Central Park, Northglenn, Lakewood, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, SE Aurora and Southlands.
Mountain View Pain Center treats neck pain across the Denver metro, with Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Chiropractic and Acupuncture in the same clinic and on the same chart.
