hurt my neck, scared it's fractured? :/

[eastofeden]

Okay so my sister and I were being stupid and roughhousing,I was sitting at the computer, she came up behind me and at the time I had my head turned to face her. While my head was turned around, she pushed my back forward while my neck was leaned quite far back. I felt a sudden pain and yelled at her to stop, and she did. My neck felt like it went too far back. It wasn't like a fast shove or anything, she was just being stupid and pushing my back forward pretty slowly, but the pain was bad, and I freaked out. The pain immediately stopped after I sat up straight, but now I'm really freaked out that my neck was bent too far, that I might have broken my neck, and that I've severed my spinal cord or something!

No other symptoms, apart from the tiniest twinge at the side when I move my neck. No current neck pain or numbness or anything, I'm walking around fine, but I'm scared because I've heard some people don't realize their neck is broken until hours later! I'm so freaked out. Should I go up to hospital? My family is telling me to stop being so melodramatic and that if I'd broken my neck I'd be dead by now, but my irrational brain is still freaked out...:weep:

[worrywart29]

There's no way you broke your neck, and able to post on here. It's possible you pulled a muscle.

[Frenchy]

Hope this doesn't sound too blunt but..... you really would have been unable to write that post if you had fractured or broken your neck.

Everyday people experience vehicle collisions at speed, and suffer extreme agonising whiplash, without their neck actually breaking.

I promise you, you are fine. If you did happen to pull a little muscle or something, I'd be surprised if you felt a twinge for more than a couple of days.

Sending positive vibes.

[countrygirl]

As others have said you probably have pulled a muscle or ligament but nothing more. YOu may find you can't turn you head one way tomorrow as its stiffened up but it will just be muscle spasm that will improve in a day or so.

I have severe spondylitis and prolasped disc in my neck and so have to avoid manipulation of my neck as in osteopathy but 2 years ago i raised my head in a room with a sloping ceiling and hit my head really hard and I heard a loud crack from my neck. Then everytime I turned my head I could hear a loud crackling sound! I was scared witless and saw an out of hours Dr who said that this was tendon strain nothing more and it would clear up eventually. My GP kindly agreed for me to have mri scan to double check it was nothing else and sure enough the scan showed no knew damage.
The crackling sound was a tendon in my neck making popping noises as I turned my head and it stopped after about 6 months.

So even my poor old neck survived the impact!