How Neck Arthritis Progresses Over Time

Now, if you’ve been suffering from neck
pain or a stiff neck, here’s possibly
the reason why. The X-ray on the left
side of the screen is what would look
like a normal curvature of the spine.
Nice easy curve, good spacing between
all the discs. Now, we have here two men
and they’re their x-rays from the side.
We have a male in his 40s and a male in
his 50s. Both presented to my office
with a stiff neck. And what happens with
neck stiffness is we stand on two feet.
So gravity is compressing us all the
time. And what ends up happening is the
curvature in our spine, if it’s supposed
to be this nice easy curvature, it
starts to get squished down and
accommodate like that. And as you see,
we start to lose space between the
discs. And especially right here, we
actually have arthritis or a lot of disc
degeneration. And then the male in his
50s, we’re seeing much more advancement
in the arthritis in his neck and even
more straightening of the spine. No
space between the first vertebra and the
skull. Essentially, this one has a
little bit more space. So, you’re seeing
an example of a male in his 40s and a
male in his 50s and the progression of
this to that and how much worse it can
get in simply 10 years. Now, how do we
treat this condition? Simply what we
would do is we would decompress the
spine and we would adjust or move the
vertebrae so the function of the spine
improves. These two men have had a 80 to
90% improvement in their symptoms and uh
discomfort with regular treatment and
then doing a maintenance or a wellness
plan afterwards. If you or anyone that
you know is suffering from neck pain or
a stiff neck, please come in and get
evaluated and see what we can do for
you.