1. Recognize Pain From a Bulging Disc
A bulging disc in the neck will often cause your neck to be chronically uncomfortable. You may experience a constant aching in the area where the disc is bulging. More likely, you'll feel a deep burning, tingling pain that's there most of the time. In very bad cases, this burning and tingling pain can radiate down into your arms, hands and fingers. The pain may become sharp at times, and can even cause numbness in your arms and hands. When this happens, surgery is often recommended, since the bulging disc is likely to be pressing on a nerve.
2. Recognize Pain From Arthritis
Arthritic necks exhibit many of the same symptoms as those of necks with bulging discs. There are often sharp, burning, tingling pains that can radiate into your arms and hands. Numbness in the arms and hands can also occur. Movement will also cause pain if you have arthritis in your neck. You'll feel like you have a stiff neck most of the time, and tilting your head backward or forward will often be quite painful. Standing up may be a challenge, due to the pain caused by the pressure of your head resting on your arthritic neck. Laying down may become the only position in which you're comfortable.
3. Recognize the Pain of Whiplash
If you've recently suffered an accident of some kind that affected your neck, you may have whiplash. This is a soft tissue injury that doesn't show up on x-rays, but is very common. If you have whiplash, you'll experience generalized neck pain, usually not confined to a certain spot. This pain is due to a tightening of the muscles from your injury. You may also experience headaches in any area of your head, and these headaches could be constant or intermittent. If your whiplash involves any tears in your neck muscles, no matter how small, you'll also experience a burning or tingling pain in your neck, particularly with movement.
