Mountain Spine Blog

Tech neck, also known as text neck, is a repetitive-use injury that affects the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves in your neck. Of course, you don’t have to be a tech-head to develop a tech neck: Any kind of activity that requires you to bend your head forward for prolonged periods, including reading or sewing, could cause tech neck. Tech neck may be a silly name, but the condition couldn’t be more serious. Without addressing the habits and causes of tech neck, you could permanently injure your cervical spine (i.e., the thin portion of your spine that runs through your neck).  If you have  neck pain  or  shoulder pain ,  Brian Fuller, MD , and our team at  Mountain Spine & Pain Physicians  in Denver, Colorado, ask you to take it seriously. Here, we lay out why tech neck is a literal pain in the neck and what you can do about it. Your head “gains weight” as you bend Most human heads weigh about 10-12 pounds when you’re standing upright...

Lower back pain is so common in our upright species that almost  80% of men, women, and kids  suffer from  lower back pain  at least once in their lives. A common reason for lower back pain in children who play sports and athletes of all ages is spondylolysis.  If you have spondylolysis, you have stress fractures in your vertebral bones from the impact of the jumping, colliding, and weight lifting that you do during sports and sports training. The stress fractures usually occur on one or both sides of the lower fourth or fifth vertebrae. Over time, untreated stress fractures in your vertebrae weaken the vertebral bone, so that it starts to slip out of its normal place in the spinal column. If your fractured vertebrae are out of alignment, you have a complication of spondylolysis that’s called spondylolisthesis.   When you visit the  Mountain Spine & Pain Physicians  office in Denver, Colorado for treatment,  Dr. Brian Fuller  fi...

Your spine keeps you upright and protects your spinal cord, which is filled with nerves that connect with almost every area of your body. But, for all its importance, your spine is a rather delicate structure and prone to injury, especially as you age. If you have lower back pain or neck pain, you may wonder why.  Brian Fuller, MD , founder of Mountain Spine & Pain Physicians in Denver, Colorado, here discusses two common sources of back pain — herniated discs and  spinal stenosis   — and how they’re related. The anatomy of your spine Your spine consists of a stack of vertebral bones that encase and protect your nerve-rich spinal cord. Your spinal cord starts at the base of your neck and runs down the center, hollow portion of the stacked vertebrae — an area known as the spinal canal — and ends in your lower back.  All along the spinal cord, nerves branch out and exit through holes in the vertebrae so that they can connect with muscles throughout your body. The n...

  Arthritis makes your joints stiff, achy, and painful to move. If you have arthritis in your knee, you may have difficulty doing simple tasks, such as sitting down in a chair, getting up, and walking. Pain medications help subdue inflammation and give you pain relief, but they may stop working over time or cause too many unpleasant side effects. Joint injections may also help, but must be repeated frequently and get expensive over time. That’s why our founder,  Brian Fuller, MD , and the team at  Mountain Spine & Pain Physicians  in Denver, Colorado, are always on the lookout for new pain treatments that can give our patients relief over the long term. If you have  knee pain  from  arthritis , you might benefit from a minimally invasive nerve ablation procedure called genicular neurotomy. How your nerves get on your nerves Whenever you experience pain, the sensation starts in your nerves. Degraded tissues, inflammation, and bone-on-bone friction i...

When you are experiencing back pain, it can be difficult to get through your day and do the things you need to do. Walking, sitting down, twisting, and picking things up suddenly become very hard to do when your back hurts.  Dr. Brian J. Fuller  is a pain medicine and physical medicine specialist practicing in Denver Colorado. Dr. Fuller is board-certified in pain medicine, electrodiagnostic medicine, and physical medicine and rehabilitation, and provides you with top-notch medical care. He has many years of experience diagnosing and treating back pain, and he develops a treatment plan that treats your symptoms and gets you back to living your life.  What causes back pain? Back pain  is an extremely common ailment, and is one of the biggest reasons that people miss work or school. The back is a complex part of the body, composed of the spine and many joints, tendons, ligaments, and muscles. A problem with any of these parts can cause pain. Some of the most common cau...

Anyone can develop joint pain, regardless of age, gender, or activity level. This type of discomfort can occur anywhere two bones come together. Joint problems can cause pain and soreness that is mild to debilitating.  One of the most common causes of joint pain is arthritis, a term that covers several joint disorders, such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Additional causes of joint pain also include: Injury or overuse Tendon inflammation, or tendonitis Bursitis, or inflammation of the pads around your joints Gout, fibromyalgia, lupus, cancer, and other conditions Treatments for joint pain used to focus on just relieving symptoms. That’s no longer the case. At Mountain Spine & Pain Physicians in Denver, Brian J. Fuller, MD, doesn’t just treat the pain. He treats the cause. Dr. Fuller offers the most advanced solutions available for joint problems, such as platelet-rich plasma therapy and stem cell therapy, both of which can repair damaged tissue. Introducing regenera...