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Can my symptoms be linked to popping my neck and neck pain?

When I was going through high school I used to pop my own neck many times a day.  I would do it and it would feel great.  

A couple of years ago I popped my neck before work and it hurt like a sob.  It literally felt like I had whiplash or something.  I had to miss work because of the pain and that night I developed a pressure from hell in the base of my skull where my neck met my skull.  It also gave me one of the worst headaches I've ever had that made me nauseous and I even threw up once.  

The job I had at the time involved a lot of sitting and meticulous concentration and it was a killer on my neck.  I'd had my head tilted down focusing on my work and sat a computer for 11 hours a day.  I'd pop my neck a few times an hour until this last episode described above.   I stopped popping my neck after doing that.  It was pretty much "cold turkey" only catching myself once in a great while popping my neck.  I had a lot of neck pain then and that's why I used to pop my neck.

Now, a couple of years later, I'm suffering from chronic neck pain and I've experienced headaches that seem to only come with it.  I went to my GP a month ago and he did an xray and it showed that my neck had lost most of its natural curve.  He said I showed little to no arthritis and my spinal cord was not at all compressed.  I have also been going through a lot of anxiety and he seemed to think that's why my neck was the way it is because my muscles were VERY tense.  He prescribed me a muscle relaxer.

I had a horrible panic attack about a week before and I didn't really  know why but I think it's because I had been paying too much attention to my neck pain and how it was affecting me.  Lately my GP has been treating me for anxiety and hasn't paid too much attention to my orthopedic problem.  I had explained that I had been suffering from headaches, a numbness ( like pins and needles, but feeling is not affected) that is slight in my face, hands and forearms.  Sometimes I have a severe sensitivity to light and my eyes will water over.   I have been suffering from slight tinnitus off and on.  My ears feel a pinch (right behind ears) once in a while that only last a few seconds to a minute.  My vision seems to have formed what I've researched to be closest to "visual snow".  My vision has not changed otherwise.  (not blurry and periphreal vision is good)  I'm currently on an antibiotic for a sinus infection and have been suffering from pain/pressure in my temples, face, and forehead.  I have pressure in the base of my skull when my neck pain is bad.  My doctor attributes many of these symptoms to my anxiety and I didn't notice many of these symptoms until after my panic attack, but lately it seems as if I have these symptoms even when I'm not dealing with a lot of anxiety and my anxiety seems to be coming from noticing how I feel.  All of my symptoms seem to be based upon how bad my neck pain is each day.  I've had blood tests and had an EKG and was told that a lot of bad things have been ruled out.  My GP hasn't recommended a CT scan or MRI yet.

My question is if it was possible that I really hurt my neck that night I popped it badly.  I told my doctor I used to pop it a lot and told him of the night I hurt it.  I have a constant pain in my neck where it hurt the most when I popped it wrong.  Everything I feel seems to stem from that point.  

I've been researching how I feel (not looking up ailments, but looking up what I'm feeling) and what seems to correlate closest to what I'm experiencing is Barre-Lieou syndrome.  It is rare and seems to be caused by trauma and that's why I'm looking for advice.  Is it trauma enough by popping my neck wrong to cause myself major hurt?  I've even been considering convincing my doctor to do an MRI on my neck to see if any nerves are pinched or if something else is wrong in it.  My neck hurts too much and too often for something to not be wrong there.  The muscle relaxer does nothing for me and I stopped  taking it because it seemed to actually make the pain worse.  

Any advice would be awesome and I thank whomever actually reads my whole post.


2 Responses
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Avatar universal
did you ever end up getting prolo?
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I realize this is an old thready, but I just stumbled across it and have very similar symptoms as you have described.

I was in a car wreck back in 1998 and hit a tree backward fairly hard. I never seeked treatment or experienced much pain following the event. Well, a few years later, a friend and I were horse playing and he got me in the headlock and squeezed pretty hard. From that point on, Ive had a popping sound in my neck everytime I turn it to the left or right. At that time I had no symptoms, just popping/grinding noise in my neck.

So, here I am many years later dealing with pressure in my head, headaches at the base/sides of my skull, visual snow/floaters, nausea, neck pain, intermittent anxiety attacks and arm tingling.

Ive had all sorts of tests from blood work, mri, catscan of brain and cervical spine, seen neurologist, ents, opthalmologist, etc... to no avail.

I read up on Barre Lieou Syndrome myself and was going to look into prolotherapy to see if I could find relief.

Do you have any updates on your situation?
Helpful - 0
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