The Best Alternative To Cracking Your Neck (Learn The Drop Technique)

The Best Alternative To Cracking Your Neck

Karen came to see us because she was dealing with lower back pain, cervical spine pain, and neck pain. Those things combined can be incredibly painful and debilitating. At this point, Karen’s lower back pain is gone and she mentions that the education that we’ve provided has been very helpful to her. For this kind of pain, we don’t just crack your neck and move on. Instead, we combine manual therapy, education, physical therapy/exercise to meet our patient’s unique needs. 

Karen has some tension in the joint which is commonly caused by arthritis, poor posture, or a combination of the two. Posture is one of the most overlooked causes of neck pain and something as simple as some good education from a professional on the topic can help you remember to maintain a posture that will help you, not hurt you.

We pride ourselves on having a team atmosphere in the office. We have a culture of healthy competition among our team to make sure our patients get results as fast as possible and provide an exceptional experience. We always continue learning to stay at the cutting edge of care so we can get exceptional patient outcomes. Our biggest focus is on helping patients feel better, faster by helping the body heal itself and arming you with the education and exercises you need to reinforce it.

Dr. Warren doesn’t manipulate Karen’s neck with harsh neck cracking. Instead, he mobilizes it. Manipulating the joint would be simply cracking it while mobilizing it is getting the joint to move to an end range without any high velocity, low amplitude adjustments. 

We do this by gently feeling how the joint moves and taking it to the end range where we feel a hardness or restriction. At that point of hardness or restriction, we adjust it using the drop technique. We always adjust the pressure to suit the patient because this shouldn’t be a painful process. 

The drop technique is a great alternative to cracking your neck and it utilizes a part of the table that drops up and down and we allow it to drop down one small notch to do this technique. This is a powerful technique we can use for neck and cervical spine pain that allows us to do impactful adjustments without harsh neck cracking. 

Karen feels an immediate release and improvement in her range of motion but she still has some restricted movement on one side. Dr. Warren continues to work on these tight spots so she leaves our office feeling better. After the rest of her treatment, she’s able to move her neck in ways she hasn’t been able to in quite a while. 

Rest after and adjustment is just as important as it is after intense strength training because it allows the body time to repair itself. In order to allow your tissue to heal, it’s important to stay hydrated, avoid nicotine, and continue moving without overexerting yourself so you don’t rest too much. It’s also important to give your body plenty of healthy protein and vitamins like magnesium and zinc as well as making sure you’re replenishing your electrolytes. All of these small, healthy adjustments to your life will reinforce your treatment effects and allow you to feel better, faster.

While there are times where we may use techniques that involve cracking your neck, that’s not our only treatment option. We have a wide range of treatment techniques and modalities that we can use as an alternative to get you out of pain and feeling better. We carefully choose our techniques based on the individual patient and what they need.

The myth that all chiropractors do is crack necks is just that, a myth. If you’re experiencing neck or back pain and you want to feel better faster, click here to schedule an appointment or call us at (410) 296-7700.