Neck pain is a fairly common complaint. Today, we are going to talk about some of the hidden sources of neck pain which are often overlooked. We are going to talk about how tight scalenes, forward head posture, gallbladder issues, and improper sleeping postures can actually cause neck pain and what you can do about them.

I am going to let you in a little secret here and it is pretty straight forward. It is impossible to render effective treatment if you do not have the the right diagnosis. That is one of the main purposes of this video. I want to show you some of the most overlooked causes of neck pain.

Tight Scalenes

The first one we are going to talk about is tight scalenes. You have three different scalenes on either side of your neck. Your anterior, your medial, and your posterior scalenes. Let us talk about how you can stretch them so you can relieve neck pain.

Anterior Scalene Stretch

So the first scalene muscle I am going to show you how to stretch is your anterior scalene. The first thing you are going to make sure is to stand upright or st upright and bend your head to the opposite side of that you are stretching. For example, I am stretching my left anterior scalene. First thing is hand on top of the head, bend head to the opposite side and then rotate head to the opposite head and a little bit up so you are looking upward. Just like that and boom, you will stretch right the anterior scalene. Feels great, super effective.

Medial Scalene Stretch

Now, let us do the medial scalene stretch. This stretch is the easiest of them all. All you have to do here is, again, stand or sit in an upright position. and bend your head to the opposite side. Pretty simple. Hand on top of the head and bend head to the left to stretch the right medial scalene. Simple as that, extremely great stretch.

Awesome! You just learn the medial scalene stretch. Now we are going to do the posterior scalene stretch. In this one, again, you are going to be seated or standing upright and you are going to bend your head to the opposite side that you are stretching. So if I am stretching my posterior right scalene, I am going to bend my head to the left. The next thing I am going to do is rotate my head downwards and away from the scalene I am stretching and boom, right there, I can feel a great stretch. Very easy, can do in the comfort of your own home.

Forward Head Posture

Great! So you just learn how to stretch the scalenes. Now, we are going to get into the second hidden cause of neck pain which is forward head posture. Forward head posture is extremely common. I would say almost every patient come into our facility is going to have this to some degree. It is a common modern postural issue, right?

In forward head posture, there are certain muscles that are tight, there are certain muscles that are weak, and the results in this where the ears starts protruding pass the shoulder joint and you have this excessive curve here in the posterior spine. That puts a lot of stress on certain structures and can cause neck pain, shoulder pain, headaches, etc. So really important we address this. What causes it? Well, think about it, anytime you are in a laptop, iPhone, maybe you are sitting at your desk like this, all of those aggravate forward head posture. One of the best exercises you can do for it is chin tucks.

Chin Tucks

Let’s check out chin tucks. For this one, I have to get pretty close to the camera so bare with me. Chin tucks is one of my favorite exercises. Why? Because it is so effective. It hits the deep cervical flexors which are often inhibited and need to be activated. This is a really potent exercise to start reversing forward head posture and then of course neck pain. What you are going to do is this. You are going to pretend that your chin is resting on a table. The reason why I wanted you to resting on a table is so that you are not flexing or extending during this exercise. So your chin is resting on a table. You are going to take this two fingers, put it on the tip of your chin and you are going to basically just push your chin back like this making a double chin. Here to here. Here to here. Simple as that, really easy, really effective exercise, can do anywhere.

Gallbladder Issues

Okay, so now you know that tight scalenes and forward head posture can definitely cause neck pain and you have some solutions for overcoming that, but what about gallbladder issues? How do gallbladder issues relate to neck pain. Specifically, it only affects right-sided neck pain. So if you have left-sided neck pain. This is not pertinent to you. Now, the gallbladder sits around the area of the liver and there are ducts inside the gallbladder and when they become sluggish, this can irritate a nerve called the phrenic which runs in around that area. The phrenic nerve also runs up into this area in the right neck. So that is where you get that neck pain on the right side being replicated because of the underlying gallbladder issues. So what you do about it. In many cases, a great alternative is acupressure. Another one is natural gallbladder flushes. I have another website where I do functional medicine on the phone with patients all throughout the country and I have an awesome video on natural gallbladder flushes, you can check it out at drstjean.com

Sleeping Positions

Okay, great, now you know a solution to gallbladder issues and how it can actually potentially cause right-sided neck pain. What about sleeping positions? This is all too often overlooked. Something as simple as sleeping on your stomach can definitely cause neck pain. If you think about it, when you are sleeping on your stomach. You can put your face straight on the pillow, you will not be able to breathe, so naturally have to twist your head to the left or right and when you do this, with the pillow, or even just with the bed, you are putting those joints in end range which can really cause some massive irritation especially when you are sleeping for a 7, 8, 9 or 10 hours a night. It is a long time to be like this, right?

Another thing would be, I see patients do this all the time where they have their favorite pillow, right? But the pillow might be too big and it is not allowing the head to rest in the proper position or may be just stacking too many pillows. A lot of patients will stack 2 or 3 pillows at night just to get to sleep. I understand that if you have allergies or if you have GERD or some other reason, but is that is the case then you have to figure our what is causing the allergies and what is causing the GERD so that you can figure out what is causing the neck pain, right? Ideally, one pillow or a cervical pillow is your best bet.

Final Notes

Okay guys, there you have it. The four potential hidden sources of your neck pain. If you want more great information about neck pain relief, check out my video and article blog at the top left portion of the page. Or if ou are ready to work with me one-on-one and get to the root cause of your neck pain, schedule a consult now

Hormonal imbalances are puzzling. So much so if they’re causing your headaches and migraines. Hormonal imbalances are very common cause of headaches. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about migraines, tension headaches, or cluster headaches. There’s a ton of different types of headaches, but in most headaches, hormonal imbalances are something that we want to consider, especially in migraine headaches.

First of all, your hormonal system is pretty complex. There’s a bunch of structures called glands throughout your body, and some of those glands, actually secrete something called a hormone. A hormone is just a messenger, right? It’s a messenger that travels through your bloodstream and tells different aspects of your body to do different things.

Let’s talk about some of those glands and their respective hormones and how imbalances in those hormones can cause different type of headaches.

Click here to schedule a consult with Dr. St Jean to discover how you can eliminate your migraines and recover your health now!

Pituitary imbalance

Your pituitary gland is kind of like the master. It’s the head honcho when it comes to your hormonal system. It sits right at the base of your brain and it’s interacting with your hypothalamus on a second-by-second basis. It’s a really important area.

When we have imbalances in the pituitary gland and in the hormones that it secretes, it can cause migraine. Imbalances can happen in the FSH (follicle stimulating hormone), LH (luteinizing hormone), prolactin, ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone – a hormone that travels from the pituitary gland all the way down into your adrenals), and TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone – a hormone that travels from pituitary gland down to your thyroid). Any of these hormones, when they’re imbalanced, can trigger headaches specially prolactin.

We can measure these things in many different ways. We want to look at them and make sure that they’re not imbalance – like, there’s not too much of them or there’s not too little of them. Because those type of things can again lead to headaches. Now, it’s important for you to not just look at this list of levels and hormones and run to your primary and say, “Can you test this and make sure they’re normal?” Different practitioners used different types of test and they also use different types of references ranges. Those are two really important things. All tests are not made the same and references ranges are not made the same.

Functional medicine to treat your headache or migraine

You’re going to want to find someone that practices functional medicine like myself. Whether you come in and work with myself directly, or we work on the phone, we can test these levels. Actually, we can do it right with the right reference ranges to make sure we’re actually picking up imbalances. All too often, unless your primary is integrative-medicine or functional medicine-minded, they’re going to find these levels to be normal. You might just hit a dead end there. But if any of these hormones from the pituitary are imbalanced, that can be triggering and causing your headaches and your migraines. You may want to keep that in mind. If you want to work with myself and want to go to the root cause of your migraine or headaches, book your intro consult today at Unity Chiropractic Center in Lincoln Park, Chicago: http://www.thechicagochiropractor.com/wellness-center/.

Thyroid imbalance

Most of us are familiar with the thyroid gland, we’ve heard of it. There are so many people that are affected by thyroid dysfunction specially hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism is when your thyroid gland is sluggish and its kind of lazy. In that regard, the hormones are imbalanced, specifically T3, T4, and calcitonin. All of these different hormone levels we want to check. We want to make sure everything is balance. If it is imbalance, then we want to ask the question, why is it imbalance, why are we having hypothyroidism, why are we having hyperthyroidism?

When we talk about hypothyroidism in migraine patients or headache patients, 80% (literally 8 out of 10) of patients walking in the door here and other facilities, actually have an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Let me tell you, if you have serious headaches or migraines and you have Hashimoto’s, the thyroid gland and its hormones are playing a role in the cause of your headaches. You’re not going to get rid of your headaches until you get rid of Hashimoto’s or the hypothyroidism.

In general, even students that are still in medical school, they’re taught that when you see a hypothyroid patient, one of the hallmark sign is headaches. It is taught in that way – it is seen in the clinic. These types of hormones need to be evaluated to see if they’re imbalanced because they could be causing your headaches and migraines. You want to rule that out.

Adrenal imbalance

Your adrenal glands secrete a ton of different hormone, but the one of relevance specifically is cortisol. Cortisol is released in response to stress. Any type of stress – physical, chemical, mental/emotional – you’re going to be releasing cortisol. Anything that fatigues the adrenal glands could imbalance the levels of hormones produced. Then it’s usually more of an indirect affect on headaches.

For instance, if you’re taking headache medication, say your popping some ibuprofen or Advil, and you’re having resistance as you’re not noticing that you’re headache pain is going down, it is resistant to medication treatment, you might want to think about adrenals. Adrenal fatigue might be the culprit of that.

If you’re adrenal glands are fatigue, that means that the hormones they’re producing and secreting are also imbalanced. When those imbalances are occurring, your day to day cycle/daily rhythm which is cortisol and melatonin are affected. Melatonin puts you to sleep. Cortisol wakes you up. When that cycle is screwed up or imbalance, it is impossible for you to have a normal monthly rhythm or cycle. This again in an indirect way adrenal dysfunction can cause headaches.

Female hormone spikes cause headache

Adrenal dysfunction can throw off the female hormones and cause female hormone imbalances. Female hormone imbalances are very obviously link to headaches. They can easily cause headache. Progesterone and estrogen are your female sex hormones, those are what make up your monthly cycle. When these are imbalanced because of a whole bunch of different reasons, that can trigger headaches.

It could be something as simple as a birth control pill or hormone replacement, stress, or blood sugar imbalances via the adrenal throwing off the female hormones.

We should see in the cycle is estrogen kind of ebbs and flows. You should see a spike in estrogen toward the beginning of your cycle and then it should start to dip down toward the end. When we look at these panels, when women come in and they have headaches and we’re suspecting may be female hormone imbalances are one of the causes. We’ll see a ton of spikes of estrogen. We won’t see that nice curve in the beginning and then it going down. We’ll just see estrogen spiking throughout the entire cycle. And we know right off the bat, okay this is definitely a component and one of the causes of their headaches. Once we treat that and fix it then the headaches begin to go away.

Stop Hormone Imbalance! Stop Headaches!

In general, any types of imbalances in these areas of the hormonal system are going to be relevant in the treatment of headaches and migraines. You’ll definitely want to make sure hormonal imbalance isn’t playing a role because if you miss this it will be tough to get better. There’s a wealth of information on hormone imbalance on my functional medicine site: www.drstjean.com. Check out this site if you want more details on female hormone imbalances, adrenal imbalances, thyroid imbalances, etc.

Have you been in a car accident in San Diego, CA? There is huge misconception that the injuries caused by a car accident are always immediately noticeable or at least recognized in the first few weeks following the incident. In reality, many of the injuries that occur during an automobile collision can take years to manifest and become problematic. Even car accidents that occur at speeds as low as 10 mph are substantial enough to cause damage to the delicate musculoskeletal system. While these injuries may be minor at their onset, they often develop into serious problems and conditions down the road.

The reason that this occurs is that typically the stress involved with an accident distracts people from being concerned about their own health. Understandably, car accident victims are usually more worried about the damage to their vehicles and the ensuing bills, rather than their own safety. The results of this confusion can have catastrophic consequences for the body. The initially unnoticeable damage sustained by the body, commonly progresses into a life long journey of pain and continual treatment. Sadly, once these injuries are noticed people often fail to attribute it to the accident and even if they do, the compensation provided by their insurance or wrongful party is not available. Therefore, if you have been involved in an auto accident in San Diego, CA, it is extremely important that you contact our Biophysics Chiropractic as soon as possible to schedule a complete examination.

Do I Need a Chiropractor?

The number of injuries that can occur following a car collision are endless. It is important to remember that the type of injury is not always related to the mechanism of the crash. Some of the worst injuries have resulted from some of the most minor accidents. So do I need a chiropractor? Our doctors at Biophysics Chiropractic have had patients present with concussions, fractures, muscle stiffness, headaches, blurry vision, dizziness, sprains, strains, back and neck injuries following some of the most minimal of accidents. The one thing that all of these injuries have in common is that they involve the musculoskeletal system. Chiropractors are known as one of the most highly trained health care professionals for the evaluation and treatment of musculoskeletal injuries. You wouldn’t visit a dermatologist for the treatment of a stroke would you? This is why so many people in the greater San Diego, CA area have chosen Biophysics Chiropractic for the treatment of their car accident injuries.

Many people believe that the driver of the vehicle or the person at fault is the most likely to be injured during an automobile collision. The truth is that all of the people in the vehicle may be hurt, regardless of where the point of impact occurred. Just because the person has no signs of visible trauma, such as fractures and bleeding, don’t underestimate the injuries that they may have sustained. Imagine the power that is required to produce a dent in a car or shatter the glass. Now realize that a large portion of that power is being absorbed by all of the people in the vehicle. With this in mind, it is easier to see why so many injuries can occur in car collisions.

As mentioned earlier in the article, the stress created by an automobile accident can be immense. These high levels of stress cause abnormally large amounts of stress hormones to be released, many of them with pain relieving properties. These hormone levels don’t return to normal immediately following the accident, but instead can stay elevated for months. It’s no wonder then why so many injuries and pain is often overlooked in the initial stages following the accident. Our chiropractors at Biophysics Chiropractic are one of the most highly trained professionals for discovering these hard to detect injuries. If necessary, x-rays or MRI studies will be used in combination with a complete history, physical, neurological, and orthopedic examination to make sure that no areas are missed. If the injury discovered is beyond our scope of treatment, our office is connected with other local health care facilities so that the most appropriate referral can be made. Our Biophysics Chiropractic is also trained in properly submitting insurance claims so that you can concentrate on your healing. So if you or someone you know has been involved in an accident, please schedule a consultation with our San Diego, CA office today.