At Van Every Family Chiropractic Center, we love taking care of the people in our community, from newborns to senior citizens, and back pain is the complaint we see most often. Neck pain runs a close second, often turning up alongside it after a long day at a desk or hunched over a phone. Roughly eighty percent of adults experience back pain at some point in their lives, and you do not have to accept it as a way of life.
Pain medication can mask the ache, but it does nothing to fix what is causing it. Our doctors find and correct the root cause, whether you are dealing with lower back pain, upper back pain, neck stiffness, disc problems, or pain that has settled in and become chronic. Our gentle techniques address the underlying nervous system interference that is often at the heart of the discomfort.
How Back and Neck Pain Show Up
Back and neck pain rarely look the same from one patient to the next. For some it settles low, an ache after a long day on your feet, or something sharper that shoots down a leg. For others it sits higher, between the shoulder blades, a stiffness that traces back to hours hunched at a desk. Neck pain has its own range too: tech neck from looking down at a phone, an old neck strain that never fully settled, tension that locks up the jaw and shoulders, or the stiffness that comes with arthritis as we age. Underneath much of it is a bulging or herniated disc pressing on a nerve, the spinal canal narrowing with age, or muscles gone tight from old injuries and everyday overuse. When it lingers past three months without letting up, it has moved from acute to chronic, and that is usually when patients decide it is time to try something different.
What Is Actually Causing It
There is no single cause for back pain. It can start in the upper, middle, or lower back, usually from a mix of causes rather than one clear culprit. Men tend to carry more low back pain, women more often report it higher up. Where it settles usually tracks with where you carry stress and how you move through your day. Neck pain follows the same pattern, whether that's a stiff jaw, tight shoulders, or a neck that won't turn all the way. Patients with back pain often mention constipation, reflux, indigestion, and irregular bowel movements too, which makes sense once you consider how many of the nerves running through your spine also serve your digestive system.
Back Pain Can Begin Early in Life
When you think of back pain, you probably picture an adult. We're seeing it earlier now: more children are suffering from back pain than a generation ago. Kids start organized sports younger, carry backpacks loaded past their own body weight, and spend hours a day looking down at a screen.
Posture is a common concern for adults and children alike. Leaning toward a computer, or tipping your head down at a phone, puts real load on your back and neck. Nothing more dramatic than that is needed to cause pain, and repeated over months, these small motions add up.
The Nervous System Connection
Back and neck pain often involve more than muscles and joints. We look for why you hurt, not just where you hurt. Your spine houses the spinal cord, and nerves branch out from it to every organ and tissue in your body. A shifted vertebra can interfere with that communication, causing pain and sometimes issues you wouldn't think to connect to your spine. Restoring alignment clears that interference, so your body can heal and function the way it's built to.
Our Approach
Our light, nervous system focused approach is gentle enough for every member of the family. Climbing on and off a table is the last thing you want when you're in pain, so we can adjust you seated, standing, or in motion instead. We start with a thorough history, consultation, and INSiGHT scanning that measures thermal, HRV, and sEMG patterns in your nervous system, so our doctors can see objectively where stress has become stuck from old injuries, posture habits, or everyday life, rather than guessing from where the pain happens to be.
Using Koren Specific Technique (KST) and Talsky Tonal Chiropractic (TTC), our doctors make precise corrections with no cracking, popping, or twisting. Because KST lets us adjust you in any position, we can work with you in the exact posture that triggers your pain, whether that's sitting at a desk, bending over the sink, or turning your neck to check a blind spot. Patients nervous about chiropractic often find these nervous system focused techniques relaxing.
What Patients Notice
Patients who come in for back or neck pain often notice changes beyond the original complaint: better sleep, more energy, improved digestion, better posture, and less reliance on pain medication are common reports. Some feel a difference after their first few visits, while more involved or long standing cases take longer as the nervous system recalibrates. That tracks: when spinal misalignments get corrected, nervous system communication improves throughout the body, not just at the site that hurt.
Exercises and Ergonomics
Care here isn't only about the visit itself. Our doctors will talk through exercises that strengthen your specific problem area, plus practical fixes like the height of your monitor or the chair at your desk. Small adjustments to how you sit, stand, and move through the day add up to real change in how your back and neck feel.
Take the First Step
You do not have to keep living with the discomfort. Our doctors see patients on Saturdays in Royal Oak, and we would love to find out what we can do for your back and neck pain.
Common Questions
Is chiropractic care safe for back and neck pain?
Can you help with pain after a car accident?
How is your approach different from traditional chiropractic?
How many visits will I need?
Should I come in if I'm in severe pain?
Do you take X-rays?
Related: Disc Herniation & Degenerative Disc · Pinched Nerves · Spinal Stenosis · Sciatica
