there are a lot of posts on this forum about subtle neck injuries. does anyone have any ideas on what kind of doctor to go to and what kind of tests to do? my experience thus far has been that they test your range of motion and press on it a little to see if it hurts. maybe they do an mri. how does one actually diagnose soft tissue injury? for example if i turn my head too many times i start to get neck pain and a tension headache.. clearly something is wrong there..

any specific doctors recommended in the nyc area? osteopaths?

I think the issue is not as much about diagnostics as it is about how to effect healing. A NUCCA or AtlasOrthogonal chiro may help define and help with getting started on a healing path but it also takes discipline to help the joints heal up properly. A Physical Therapist may also help if he/she has good gentle skills with the upper neck such as light traction with gentle joint mobilization. In my experience, pushing for range of motion prior to allowing the soft tissue to properly heal is counter productive.

A common way to help determine if head aches are neck related is by touching the bony parts behind the ears. If they are tender to the touch, it usually indicates muscle spasms radiating from the neck.

I have said this many times, sleeping and resting with good neck/head posture is important. Otherwise, the joints can be strained while the body is relaxed during sleep.

Some related info in this thread-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread214296.html

One thing I don't understand, many of the PCS patients including me have surprisingly found out that many symptoms are actually because of neck muscle stiffness and spasms. How is that muscle stiffness related to our injury? We surely never had this muscle problem before our head traumas. From where does it suddenly appear after concussions ?

The muscle problems come from upper neck injuries where C-1 and C-2 have been traumatically caused to get out of position. Any traumatic force against the skull will have an effect on the neck. When the upper neck is injured, it become inflamed and the muscles can spasm causing head aches, etc.

Galaxy, I wonder if you have any upper neck injury because the mechanism of your injury, slamming your head against a concrete wall in anger, does not appear to have force against your head than could cause an upper neck injury. There would not have been a whiplash like force effecting your neck unless you were throwing your body against the wall. Just wondering ????

I am guessing it's my neck because
1. The moment my head came in contact with the wall I instantly had numbness in my limbs and right side of my face. So maybe this means nerve damage in neck? Just a guess

2. When my PT was moving the ultrasound therapy device on my upper neck muscles my tinnitus fluctuated like crazy and went up and down in volume like from 0 to 10 while relaxing those muscles. After the muscles got relaxed, the fluctuation reduced .

3. When I jump or move over a speed bump or a pothole while in a car, I feel some irritation or some nerve getting pinched deep inside my upper neck/base of the skull. My neck would feel traumatized and fatigued for several hours after the drive. I have regained the tolerance for mild to moderate bumps but a large bump still makes me feel uncomfortable somewhere below my skull.

4. While walking and ear plugs plugged in I hear some squeaky noises originating below my skull.

I am still not sure what's wrong and I may be totally wrong in my guesses. I just want to explore every possibility depending on where I feel the discomfort and it's neck right now. My PT has told me to get upper cervicel MRI . do you think its worth it and will show if any nerve is getting pinched ? He feels there is no misalignment but just to rule out. I am doing regular icing right now . the impact was really hard on the top right side of my head so I feel my neck definitely absorbed some of it

I , otherwise don't have any pain on pressing hard on trigger points in my upper neck and no visible inflammation in neck muscles. So I'm just confused

Galaxy,

you sound very similar to me. I have those noises as well. MRI's didn't help me. My chiro looked at the MRI's and said I had mild ligameent damage and degeneration in the c-5 and 6 area, not close to the top. i wouldnit get one if I were you, especially if you say your neck is aligned. I'd get x-rays for sure though and see a chiro.

No one seems to ask this question: where do you seem to feel this head sensitivity? I feel it in the top front of my head.

Like you, I'm trying to find if it is my head or neck or both. Regardless, my neck is messed up and I have a low tolerance to bumps. About a year ago it got a lot better until I came down on a curb biking for the first time. I have hope it will improve and hopefully heal completely.

Mark,

Does stretching seem to be okay?

Also, does the curve in the neck matter much? most chiros have been saying they like a nice C-shape, specifically a 45 degree curve. I sleep on my back and it is the majority of the night straight, but I'm wondering if I should sleep on a rolled towel to get that curve. I've been on and off w/ the towel. It's difficult to adjust to.

My neck is nowhere close to looking like a perfect neck. It does not feel stable. It's been out of alignment for years. I'm wondering if the healing of soft tissues now helps much at all. It just seems like most things I do re tear the tissue. i'm not entirely sure if it's tissue, but I hear noises that sound fluidy or fibery.

I got the MRI done today. It came back negative. I had mixed feelings and actually wanted it to detect something so that I would know that I am in the right direction. This further confuses me if the results can be relied upon . are xrays better in dectecing c1 misalignment than MRI? I read somewhere that open mouth cervical scan is unbeatable in detecting C1 alignment problems. I don't know what to do now and where to go as my neck shows nothing and I still have sensitivity to head issue.

Please check the attached MRI cervical report . let me know your thoughts on this and if this can be relied upon and if this really is good in detecting the subtle misalignments . is there any further special test that can be done after MRI is negative or should I just move on to PT and rehab ?

Attached Thumbnails

 

Like your MRI, mine didn't show much. The radiologists said nothing looked wrong.

My chiro (NUCCA) told me where problems were. Nerves didn't seem to be an issue in the imaging, but my chiro says that the sens. def. could be nerves being compressed.

It isn't x-ray vs mri really. It's more of how you are situated in the imaging. I had seen 2 previous chiros who took xray and didn't take an x-ray that my NUCCA chiro took that really shows the problems up in the c-1 and 2 areas.

You really should see a NUCCA chiro if you can or an Atlas orthagonal chiro. they have much more expertise in this than PT's. It's their speciality.