What is it? Neck arthritis is a chronic and inflammatory disease of the discs and the bones in the neck. It often presents merely as a neck pain, but if left untreated, it begins to aggravate and degenerate over time.
Statistics: Neck arthritis may be present in a person that has attained the age of forty or more and continues to progress thereon and according to statistics, men may develop neck arthritis earlier than would women and the condition may also lead to myelopathy, affecting the spinal cord as well.
Important Facts: Arthritis in the neck is a wear-and-tear neck condition resulting from years of minor trauma to the cervical spine and its structures. The severity of the ‘wear’ varies between individuals, but is almost always worse in those who have worked in a physically demanding occupation for many years, such as construction.
Treatment: There are a multitude of treatment modalities ranging from rest to surgery depending on the severity of the symptoms and the underlying cause that is identified. A majority of cases cervical arthritis respond to exercises.
Dos/Don’ts: To reduce arthritis neck pain the first thing you can do is stop doing nothing and do something.
Use hydrotherapy, which is a combination of water, heat and air. It’s amazing what a good hot tub will do to relieve arthritis neck pain.
Get rid of stress of any kind — Stress creates tension and causes pain of all sorts including arthritis. Relaxation is a key factor. What’s relaxing to one person may not relax another. So, you will need to decide what works best for you.
Common Myths: Another common myth is that nightshade vegetables, which include potatoes, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes, can exacerbate arthritis symptoms. The belief is that a chemical in these vegetables can cause too much calcium to build up in the body, damaging the joints. But doctors say there’s not a lot of scientific evidence to back up that claim.
Unlike knuckle cracking, cracking neck is a habit which has serious side effects. Medical research conducted in the past few decades also indicate, that people who are on an unceasing spree of cracking neck, are at a greater risk of suffering a stroke, showcasing either transient ischemic attack (TIA) symptoms or those of a fatal one.