A Real Pain in the Neck

There is an old Italian saying "The man is the head of the house but the woman is the neck so she controls the head".  This week I realized, painfully, how much ones neck can control or hold  your entire body hostage.  It started with a a twinge on Sunday and by Tuesday night after getting off work at 11:00 pm it was a full blown stiff neck with spasms.  The pain was localized on my left side which left me walking lopsided like a miniature Frankenstein monster.  Driving home each bump, turn, acceleration, and deceleration sent shock waves of pain through my body.  After I arrived home it took me 40 minutes to undress because I couldn't get my dang tee-shirt off I took a hot shower, and after brushing my teeth with what felt like a jack hammer I went to bed.  The next morning, Wednesday, when I awoke my neck was frozen, I had to slide out of bed on my back like a cartoon character slinking off their chair under the table and out the door.  I called the Dr. and was seen the same day.  Diagnosis, a stiff neck with muscle spasms (like I already didn't know that), and an inflamed inner ear. Well it was off to X-Ray which reviled I didn't have a pinched nerve, misaligned vertebrae or bulging disk, quite a relief.  The Dr. then tells me I don't seem to have a normal neck.  It seems that each of us should have something called a cervical curvature, but not me mine is perfectly straight! <grin>  After a double big needle filled with wonderful steroids, free samples of muscle relaxants (the colors man), and prescriptions for pain relievers and more steroids I am handed my X-rays and told since my primary care physician has never seen a neck as straight as mine I am off to a specialist at the "Spine and Neuro Care" clinic.  Skip to Friday - After filling out all the paper work the night before I arrive a half hour early for my 10:45 appointment only to wait an hour in the waiting room, aptly named, and then another 15 minutes in the patient room, 5 minutes with the Dr. who had me sit on a stool while she checked my neck, had me turn my head to the left and then tilt it up to the left at which time she pressed down on it like she was playing whack a mole with my head after which she asked if it hurt, what do you think????? of course it did and worse than it did before she whacked me.  So in a nut shell after another $25.00 co-pay I am on my way no wiser for the visit.  The specialist diagnosis is that there is nothing technically wrong with my neck, she said that it is suppose to have a curve, it could be mine naturally doesn't. Since she doesn't have history on my neck she cannot say.  She also cannot say whether the fact that I do not have a curve caused the stiff neck or the spasms associated with me having a stiff neck caused the cervical vertebrae to lose their natural curve and go straight, her final recommendation is that I continue the normal course of treatment set out by my primary care physician.  You have to love the medical profession!  Don't get me wrong I am relieved to know my abnormally straight cervical column is not a problem, and I can go on with my life not knowing if I am a medical oddity or just a spaz, the world nor I will never know!