Here’s what causes bone spurs:

Imagine you are a bone.  Muscles keep pulling on you.  Why?

Because that’s what muscles do.

But sometimes a muscle is a bit ‘too tight.’  So it pulls a bit too much where it attaches to your neck or spine.

What can you–a bone–do?

Well, you can make a little more bone tissue to take the pressure off yourself.  You can grow a little nub of bone where the muscle attaches to you.  That has the effect of creating a little more slack in the tight muscle.

It’s called a bone spur.

If the spur grows into a large bony growth it can cause discomfort.

If the bone spur is in your neck or back it might even press on a nerve.  In that case it can cause tingling, nervy-type pain or numbness.

If a spur is large and is causing problems for you it may need to be corrected surgically.

But if the bony growth is small it can go away (be absorbed back into your body) if you take the muscle pressure off the bone.

How can you take the pressure off the bone?

Spurs usually start with poor posture.  Correcting your posture–getting your head and shoulders back where they belong–can make a big difference.

Poor posture causes muscles to be out of balance.  Some muscles are too weak (in back) and some are too tight and short (in front.)  The tight muscles pull on bones.

The bones create spurs to relieve the pulling.

And that, in a nutshell, is what causes bone spurs.

By the way, most of us would have bone spurs if our doctors took x-rays.  That doesn’t mean the pain you have is caused by the bony growths, though.

Muscles are still the most common cause of pain.  And the good news is that muscles are treatable, naturally.

If your doctor says your pain is caused by the spur he sees in your tests, she may be right.

Or maybe it’s just muscles, as usual.