Marc Darrow MD,JD

I regularly see patients who have been told by another doctor that they need a neck surgery to prevent the further degeneration of their cervical spine. Some of these patients are very frightened by what their doctor told them. Some were told that if their symptoms progress they could risk permanent damage to their ability to function maybe to the point of paralysis.

“I am worried if I do not get surgery my neck will get worse”

Research has strongly suggested that many patients decide on cervical fusion surgery because they fear a progression of their problem that will lead to permanent disability. However, follow-up data on patients with degenerative disease of the upper (cervical) spinal vertebrae show little or no evidence of worsening degeneration over time. Recently, doctors published findings that suggested that the majority of these patients may be stable and do not develop progression of disease or catastrophic neurologic deficits.
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Marc Darrow MD,JD

In the more than 20 years we have been helping patients with their chronic pain, we have seen many people with hyper-extended neck injuries, or, in simpler terms whiplash injury. We have also seen patients who suffered from long-term effects of their whiplash injury until such time as they were diagnosed with Whiplash Associated Disorders (WAD). As noted in many studies including that published in the journal Frontiers in neurology:

• “The main concern with whiplash is that a large proportion of whiplash patients experience disabling symptoms or whiplash-associated disorders (WAD) for months if not years following the accident.”(1)

As noted, Whiplash associated disorders are a lingering and complex series of problems for patients who have suffered whiplash injury in the past and whose impact continues for years even decades after the initial injury. The complexity of pain issues these patients suffer from leaves many frustrated with their health care providers and leaves some fighting to prove that there is something really wrong with them. If one were to examine the research on whiplash related disorders, he/she would find that most of the new studies center around identifying those patients who cannot be helped or feel helpless.
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Marc Darrow MD,JD

Over the years we have seen many patients with problems and challenges related to migraine headaches. Of course the biggest challenge these new patients are facing was finding good, effective, long-term relief. Headache is a very complex subject. Headaches can be caused by many things. In my article here we will concentrate on the musculoskeletal causes of headache: neck ligament damage and neck muscle weakness caused by tendon weakness and damage.

In the Journal of Headache Pain (December 2017), (1) researchers examined the relationship and cause of  migraine, co-existing tension-type headache, and neck pain in headache patients. One hundred forty-eight people participated in this study.

• Out of 148 persons with migraine, 100 (67%) suffered from co-existing tension-type headache and neck pain.
• Only 11% suffered from migraine only.
• Persons with migraine and co-existing tension-type headache and neck pain had lower level of physical activity and psychological well-being, higher level of perceived stress and poorer self-rated health compared to healthy controls.
• They reported reduced ability to perform physical activity owing to migraine (high degree), tension-type headache (moderate degree) and neck pain (low degree). The most burdensome condition was migraine, followed by tension-type headache and neck pain.

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Marc Darrow MD,JD

Everyday we get many emails. Some of these emails concern neck pain. In many of these emails the person asking a question sends me their cervical neck MRI findings. That is all they send: A cut and paste of their MRI report. They never say what their pain is like, how this neck pain is affecting their day to day quality of life, or any other glimpses into how this chronic neck pain is hurting them. The email that they send me is all about their neck MRI. Our own clinical findings and that of researchers is that maybe your neck pain should not be all about your MRI.It should be about you.

As many of you are already aware, MRI interpretations can be a long, hard to understand, somewhat frustrating thing for a patient to see and read. The MRI may also seemingly describes a lot of problems with a lot of terminology that can be considered frightening. This may, for many, cause unneeded anxiety and fear. I have been doing regenerative medicine for more than 20 years. Over the years we have been blessed to have helped many people with their neck pain. I have seen patients with varying degrees of degenerative cervical spine disease trying to avoid surgery, I have also seen patients after a cervical neck surgery with more challenges than before the surgery who, unfortunately, may have had a surgery that they did not need. The one thing many of these people had in common was a cervical neck MRI that suggested a lot more problems than the patient was actually having.
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