Neck pain is something with which I’ve had some experience, from the time I was twelve or thirteen years old. While I now know that my neck probably started hurting because it was severely out of alignment with my spine, it’s still a little bit of a mystery as to how or why that problem originated.

In the Genes? -

I remember my mother, when I was little, suffering periodically from what she referred to as a “crick in her neck.” I don’t know how common that term is, or if it’s something specific to our family or our part of Oklahoma. But what it means is debilitating neck pain, possibly even muscle spasms.

When Mom had a “crick in her neck,” we knew to stay out of her way. She rarely rested, but she moved like a person with a neck injury-carefully, stiffly. She didn’t say much about it, but it was clear that she was in extreme pain. Usually, these bouts lasted for a day or two, and then she was better again.

My father, as it transpires, also suffers from neck pain. He’s the one from whom I inherited my scoliosis. When I told him a few years ago that I was seeing a chiropractor, he jokingly suggested that he go too. He jokes not because he doesn’t think it could help him-it’s that he has no idea how much it could help.

The Vicious Cycle of Stress and Pain -

His fiancé also experiences excruciating neck pain. I feel pain watching her, the way she carries herself when her neck is hurting-which is usually. I can see in the curve of her neck and shoulders how much a chiropractor could help her-or possibly surgery, because she’s got a herniated disk in her back, just like my stepfather.

But like my mother, my soon-to-be stepmother doesn’t ever stop. She works fulltime-sometimes more than fulltime-in addition to taking care of her house and her family. She lives with the pain because she has already lived with it for so long and doesn’t envision any kind of possible solution. Like my father, she laughs at the idea of a chiropractor not because she doesn’t believe it’s viable treatment-but because she’s lost hope.

It Must Be Stopped -

As an adult, I have suffered from cricks as well-usually in times of extreme stress, both physical and emotional, like the time I had to move out of an unsafe apartment on New Year’s Eve. I had the crick to end all cricks then-but I went to my chiropractor, and he helped make it better.

I see these people I love in pain, and I want to scream at them that there is help out there, if they would only seek it and believe that it could help them. They’re all only in their fifties, and I want them to live for fifty more years-but neck pain can signal-or cause-serious health problems. That’s why it’s so important to believe relief is possible-and go find it.

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