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What are ways that neck cracking can lead to nerve pain?

(17 y/o male) About 2.5 years ago I have had a very bad neck cracking tic where I would crack my head very frequently during the day. This tic lasted a few months. During this time I began feeling a throbbing line of pain where my supra orbital nerve is, throbbing pain in the occitpal region on the left side of my head, and occasionally mild pain in my trigeminal nerve system. I thought these symptoms matched what was described with a painful c1/c2 joint in a paper titled "Cervical zygapophysial joint pain maps" by Grant Cooper. My doctor does not believe this is the case as my x-rays have all be normal. If anyone has any idea of what this might be or things to research regarding the pain it would be appreciated.
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973741 tn?1342342773
You know, my son has a tic currently that affects his neck and moving his head a certain way.  He gets a lot of headaches lately. His doctor doesn't know if it is from the movement of his neck muscles so they are tense or if it is his anxiety/depression which is worse right now. He's also 17 years old.  You're pretty young and I'm not sure a tic would cause permanent damage.  A lot of times muscles that are all attached in the area you describe become tight.  Gentle stretching and ibuprofen can help.  Have you tried medical massage? It's pretty awesome at working out various things like this.  And if all else fails, perhaps an orthopedic doctor can assess you or a neurologist.  
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Avatar universal
You should know that disc problems don't usually cause pain.  Sometimes they do, but usually it's muscle pain, not joint pain.  There can be pinching of nerves caused by inflammation of muscles or any injured tissue or yeah, sometimes it can be a disc pinching on a nerve.  An x-ray probably wouldn't show that, an MRI might, but if in the X-ray everything solid looks just fine it's usually not going to be the disc and so you would only get an MRI if there was a reason to get one.  Regular docs really aren't that great at this stuff, you'd usually see an orthopedic surgeon if you really think you have a disc impinging on a nerve.  More likely you have poor posture when you use your phone and your computer and you could very well have irritated all kinds of things snapping your head around like that.  
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