You can have neck pain with no headaches or headaches with no neck pain, but quite often these two issues are like two peas in a pod! While there are many muscles that make up the entirety of the neck, there are 4 paired muscles that hold most of the blame. Their proper names are Rectus Capitis Posterior Major, Rectus Capitis Posterior Minor, Obliquus Capitis Superior and Obliquus Capitis Inferior. Collectively, they are referred to as the Suboccipital muscles. They are small but strong muscles that are used to move the base of your skull on top of the first two segments of your spine (Cervical vertebrae 1 & 2). Interesting fact: your eyes love to be at the level of the horizon, so looking straight forward with your head in neutral position. Your head posture when you are looking even slightly up or slightly down for long periods of time, in most of our cases looking WAY down (at our phones), really make the suboccipital muscles angry. Do you work a desk job where you are looking down at your screen for 8 hours a day, and then you go home and look down at your phone throughout the night? DOUBLE TROUBLE!
There are multiple techniques to treat these muscles and your neck as a whole. Don’t hesitate to schedule your appointment today and take care of this problem before it becomes a real problem!
No worries, I have your back….or in this case your neck
