What Doctors Know about Neck Pain
One of the first aspects doctors will evaluate is how long you have had this problem. When they ask how long, they want to know if you suddenly started feeling this symptom or if you actually live with it and now it’s more severe than before. This helps doctors identify two types of pain. They are known as acute neck pain and chronic neck pain.
Acute neck pain is more severe during a few days or weeks. It often resolves entirely in less than two months. However, it happens very often that patients experience recurrences one year after the initial symptoms. This is not necessarily because the doctor was wrong in the diagnosis or gave you the wrong type of treatment. Doctors know this happens, and it is more frequent in older adults, females, patients with psychosocial problems, or when the neck pain diagnosis has to do with the nervous system (radiculopathy).
One of the reasons why patients do not diagnose their problem is that they know that neck pain will go away. They also know it will go back someday. They get used to living like this and neglect their condition. However, if you have recurrent problems, it is likely because something is not working as it should. The best thing you can do is put a name to it and look for a solution.