Neck pain has a way of taking over everything else. You can’t check a blind spot without turning your whole body. You wake up with a headache that started somewhere behind your eyes and traces back to the base of your skull. You’ve been rolling your shoulders at your desk for months hoping it sorts itself out.

It usually doesn’t sort itself out, because whatever is loading your neck the wrong way is still loading it the wrong way.

Dr. Mark Chiungos has been treating neck pain in Chelmsford since 1999 — 25+ years in the same community. The care is gentle, drug-free, and starts with actually finding out what’s causing it.

Call (978) 376-8190 to schedule an evaluation.

Common Causes of Neck Pain

• Posture and “tech neck” — the most common one we see now. Every inch your head drifts forward adds meaningful load to the muscles and joints holding it up. Eight hours a day at a laptop, and the neck loses.
• Whiplash and old injuries — a car accident years ago that “resolved” often left restricted motion behind that only starts hurting later.
• Disc problems in the cervical spine — herniation or degeneration that can produce pain, numbness or tingling down the arm and into the hand.
• Joint restriction and muscle tension — segments that have stopped moving properly, with the surrounding muscles guarding around them.
• Arthritis in the neck — common with age and manageable with the right approach.

When neck pain causes headaches

A large share of recurring headaches are cervicogenic — they start in the neck, not the head. The pattern is usually recognizable: pain at the base of the skull that wraps up and over toward the temple or behind one eye, often worse on one side, often worse after a long stretch at a desk.

If that describes your headaches, treating the neck is treating the headache. It’s one of the more satisfying things we do, because people often assume they’re stuck with them.

How We Relieve Neck Pain

Chiropractic adjustment

Targeted chiropractic adjustments restore motion to the cervical segments that have stopped moving properly, which takes the load off the tissue that’s been compensating. The cervical spine is a delicate area and we treat it that way — the approach is matched to your exam findings and your comfort level, and there are gentler techniques available if you’d rather not have your neck manipulated at all. Tell us and we’ll work with it.

Aspen Apex Laser Therapy

Aspen Apex Laser Therapy uses three specific light wavelengths to reduce inflammation and support tissue repair — drug-free and non-invasive. It’s especially useful early on, when the area is too irritated for manual work to feel good yet.

Posture Pump® — the part you do at home

In-office care handles what’s already gone wrong. The 40 hours a week at your desk is what put it there. Posture Pump® is an at-home device that decompresses and restores the natural curve of the cervical spine, and for desk-bound patients it’s often what makes the in-office progress stick.

We’ll show you whether it’s appropriate for your situation rather than selling it to everyone.

Posture and Prevention

Most of what we can do for you happens in the office. Most of what determines whether it lasts happens at your desk.

A few things that consistently make a difference:

• Get the top of your monitor to roughly eye level, so you’re not looking down all day
• Bring the phone up to your face instead of dropping your head to the phone
• Break up long stretches of sitting — a couple of minutes of movement every half hour beats one long stretch session
• Sleep with your neck supported in a neutral position; a pillow that’s too tall is a common culprit

We’ll go through the specifics that apply to your setup at your visit. Generic posture advice is easy to find; the version that accounts for your particular neck is worth more.

What Happens at Your First Visit

We book longer appointments than most practices on purpose. Your first visit is a real evaluation — history, orthopedic and neurological testing, a look at your range of motion and posture, and a conversation about when the pain shows up and what makes it worse.

At the end you’ll know what we think is causing it, whether we believe we can help, and what care would actually involve. If we don’t think we’re the right fit, we’ll tell you.

More about what to expect as a new patient

Insurance and Medicare

We accept Medicare, Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts Health Plan, BlueCross BlueShield, and UniCare/GIC.

Medicare covers chiropractic spinal adjustment when it’s medically necessary. Most commercial plans include a chiropractic benefit, though visit limits and copays vary by plan. Call us before your first appointment and we’ll help you check your benefits.

Serving Chelmsford and the Merrimack Valley

Our office is at 5 Fletcher Street in Chelmsford, easy to reach from Route 3 and I-495. We regularly see patients from Chelmsford, North Chelmsford, Tewksbury, Westford, Billerica and Lowell.

A Chiropractic Wellness Place, PC
5 Fletcher Street, Chelmsford, MA 01824
(978) 376-8190

Schedule your evaluation

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a chiropractor help neck pain?
For most neck pain — postural, mechanical, disc-related or following an old injury — chiropractic care addresses the restricted joint motion and nerve irritation that are usually driving it. How much it helps depends on the cause and how long it’s been going on, which is what the evaluation is for. If we don’t think chiropractic is the right approach for what you have, we’ll say so.

Why does my neck hurt from working at a desk?
Because your head is heavy and your monitor is probably too low. When your head drifts forward of your shoulders, the muscles and joints at the back of the neck work continuously to hold it up — for hours at a time, every day. Over months that produces stiffness, restricted motion and often headaches. Raising the monitor and breaking up sitting helps; if it’s already painful, the mechanics usually need correcting first.

Can neck problems cause headaches?
Yes. Cervicogenic headaches originate in the neck and refer pain up into the head — typically from the base of the skull toward the temple or behind an eye. If your headaches track with desk time or neck stiffness, it’s worth having the neck evaluated rather than continuing to treat the headache alone.

How many visits will I need for neck pain relief?
It varies with the cause and duration. Recent postural or mechanical neck pain often responds within a handful of visits; long-standing problems and disc involvement take longer. We’ll give you a realistic estimate after the evaluation and reassess as we go, rather than quoting a generic number or locking you into a package up front.

Is neck pain ever an emergency?
Usually not, but seek prompt medical care if neck pain follows significant trauma such as a car accident or fall, or comes with fever and stiff neck, progressive weakness or numbness in an arm or hand, problems with balance or coordination, or trouble with speech or vision. Those need urgent evaluation rather than a chiropractic appointment.