I have a neck problem that came during preparation for surgery from anethesia then putting the tube down my throat for oxygen and pushing my head to far back. They made a hole down the center of the outside and inside of my neck to my collarbone. I have barrium in my neck that is still there. I ended up in the trauma unit and almost died from the hole they made and they cut up the back of my throat. If you have had surgery, your neck could have been hurt being strained too far, and you would not know it. You are normally on pain meds, so it covers it up. They took x-rays because I kept complaining about how it hurt. They knew about the soft tissue damage, but not the neck bone. I went to an expert dr. that took the xrays of the neck bone. Nothing showed up, it looked perfect. He told me it is awfully hard to injure your neck. Well, I went to another dr that did an MRI. C-6 and C-7 were buldging. The pain was so bad when I was turning my head trying to work, it was unreal. We never realize how much we turn our head until it hurts. I hear mine crackle all the time. Now as a result of being out of alignment I have back problems. I have a pain management dr that is great. I had a treatment of shots down my back 2 times. The second one worked better. They couldn't find the back problem on the MRI, so he did a dye injection putting pressure on those discs and I would tell him how bad it would hurt. That was how he found it. As for my neck, I had pt a couple times, a radio-frequency de-nervation twice to deaden the nerves carrying pain. That is a temporary fix. I stay on muscle relaxers, anti-flamatory, and pain med to deal with it. I could go with surgery, but I don't want to do that. It makes me have terrible headaches and causes earaches, besides the neck it self hurting. I have soft tissue and neck bone damage. Soft tissue does not show up on MRI, the barrium that went down the hole when they xrayed showed, and it still does. Wish you the best
Sounds a lot like my situation. I've been told by doctors that I have an inner ear virus that will affect me my whole life randomly -- causing dizziness and crackles/swooshing. But, I also have chronic pain where head connects to neck and between neck and shoulders, nausia, dizziness, focusing issues... I don't have a history of any specific events leading to it either... so hmm.