“Dr. Bergin at Chiromed Wellness Centers is the best chiropractor in town. I no longer have to take pain meds. If you still have pain, you’re not seeing to best chiropractor.”
Condition
Neck Pain treatment
in Lakeland and The Villages, FL
A stiff, aching neck usually traces to two things: how long you hold one position, and whether the joints underneath still move. We examine both before treating either.
- 22 years in practice
- Chiropractor led care
- Non-surgical
- $47 new patient exam
- 22 years in practice
- $47 new-patient exam
Medically reviewed by Dr. Justin Bergin, DC Updated September 14, 2026
Quick summary
Neck pain usually comes from the joints, discs and muscles of the cervical spine rather than from anything sinister. Posture held too long, a rear-end collision, or ordinary joint wear are the three usual sources. Care begins with an examination by Dr. Justin Bergin, DC, then restores movement to the segments that stopped moving and calms the guarding around them.
Understanding neck pain
Neck pain is pain from the seven vertebrae of the cervical spine, the discs between them, their small facet joints and the muscles holding the structure upright. It is usually mechanical, meaning a specific segment or muscle group is under a load it cannot keep tolerating.
Your head weighs roughly as much as a bowling ball and sits on a column built for movement rather than load. That trade off makes the neck mobile and easy to overwork. Tilt the head forward toward a screen and the effective load on the lower segments climbs sharply, which is why eight hours at a desk hurts more than eight hours walking. Underneath, the same wear that reaches any joint reaches these. Discs thin, facet joints get arthritic, nerve exits narrow. None of that automatically causes pain. It turns painful when one segment loses movement and its neighbours take the extra work. The muscles are the loudest part of the picture and rarely the root of it. A trapezius rock hard for six months is protecting something, and treating only the muscle is why relief lasts until Thursday.
The neck is the part of the body people put up with longest. It aches at the end of the workday, it grinds when you check a blind spot, it wakes you at three in the morning if you sleep on it wrong, and none of that feels serious enough to act on. So it runs for years. What brings people into ChiroMed Wellness Centers is the day it starts reaching somewhere new. Into the shoulder blade. Down an arm. Into a headache that begins at the base of the skull and works forward. Dr. Justin Bergin, DC, 22 years into practice, examines the cervical spine segment by segment, checks how the nerves are behaving, and orders imaging only where it would change what happens next. The care that follows is hands-on and unhurried. Adjusting where segments have locked, decompression where a cervical disc is involved, release work on muscles guarding so long they have forgotten how to stop. Lakeland and Lady Lake run the same lineup.
Independent background: Neck pain symptoms and causes, Mayo Clinic.
Symptoms
Most people recognise their own version somewhere in this list. Each one maps to a specific finding the examination checks for.
- Aching at the base of the neck
- Tightness across the shoulders
- Reduced range on turning the head
- Grinding or clicking with movement
- Headache starting at the skull base
- Pain between the shoulder blades
- Numbness or tingling down an arm
- Waking with a stiff neck
Common causes
Sustained desk and phone posture
Hours of forward head position load the lower cervical segments and hold the upper back muscles at length. Pain builds through the day rather than starting sharply.
Whiplash from a rear-end collision
Sudden acceleration of the head beyond its normal range strains ligaments and joint capsules. Symptoms often begin hours or days after the crash, not at the scene.
Cervical disc degeneration
A disc that has lost height changes vertebral spacing and can narrow the opening a nerve root passes through. That is when arm symptoms appear.
Facet joint wear
The small paired joints at the back of the neck are a common source of one sided pain, worse on turning or looking up, and they wear with age like any joint.
Muscle guarding and stress
Prolonged tension keeps the neck and shoulder muscles switched on around the clock. Guarding reduces movement, and reduced movement feeds more guarding.
Sleeping position and pillow height
A pillow holding the neck side bent or rotated for seven hours reproduces symptoms every morning, and it is one of the easiest contributors to change.
How we treat neck pain in Lakeland and The Villages
Neck care here restores movement at the segments that lost it, unloads a cervical disc when one is involved, and releases the guarding that keeps pulling the neck back into the same position. What you get depends on which of those the examination identifies.
Chiropractic Care for Restricted Cervical Segments
Adjusting restores motion to the segment that locked up, which lets the muscles around it stop guarding. Technique is matched to the neck in front of him, with instrument assisted options for patients who do not want a manual adjustment. This portion bills insurance, verified beforehand.
Decompression When a Cervical Disc Is Involved
Arm symptoms that track a nerve pattern rather than staying local point at the disc or the nerve exit. Decompression applies controlled cycling traction to the cervical spine to reduce that pressure. It is a self-pay program and the parameters come from your examination.
Release Work for Chronically Guarded Muscle
Active Release Technique and Graston work address the trapezius, levator scapulae and suboccipital muscles doing most of the guarding. This is usually what makes an adjustment hold for a week instead of unwinding by the weekend.
What recovery usually looks like
Getting range back Early in the plan
The first target is movement, not comfort. Turning the head to back the car out, and sleeping through the night, tend to change before the background ache does.
Holding the change Through the active plan
Visits space out as gains last longer between them. The workstation, the pillow and the home exercises matter more here than anything done in the office.
Maintenance Once the plan ends
For necks with a long history, a handful of planned checks protects the result. That is a conversation, not an automatic booking.
The non-responder At the agreed reassessment
If range and symptoms have not shifted by the checkpoint, the diagnosis gets revisited. Sometimes imaging, sometimes a referral. Not more of the same.
When to seek care sooner
What to try at home first. For an ordinary stiff, achy neck with no arm symptoms, change what the neck does all day. Raise the screen so its top sits at eye level. Take the phone off your shoulder. Stand up every half hour. Try a different pillow height for a week, since a pillow holding the neck rotated all night undoes everything else. Gentle range of motion, done often and stopped short of sharp pain, beats aggressive stretching. Heat helps most necks more than ice after the first day or two. No better in two weeks means it needs examining. See someone urgently if neck pain comes with weakness or clumsiness in a hand, arm weakness that is worsening, unsteadiness on your feet, any change in bowel or bladder control, fever with severe neck stiffness, unexplained weight loss, or if the pain began with a crash or a significant fall. Severe neck pain after trauma is assessed medically before anyone treats it, and that includes us.
Red-flag findings belong with a physician, promptly, and not with conservative care alone.
Cost, insurance and financing
Cost follows the plan, and the plan follows the examination. What your care involves is quoted at the report of findings, in writing, before a course of care begins.
The one published price
Consultation, Exam, X-Rays (If Needed) & Report of Findings: Only $47
What moves the cost
- Whether arm symptoms mean nerve testing or imaging
- Whether the plan adds a decompression protocol
- How many segments are involved and for how long
- Whether a crash claim or third party insurer is involved
What a course includes
- The consultation, examination and report of findings
- Digital X-rays where the findings call for them
- A home program written for your workstation and sleep position
Payment: Chiropractic care and the soft tissue work delivered with it bill insurance, with your benefits verified before the first visit. Cervical decompression is a self-pay program. Payment plans are available for self-pay care. Ask the front desk which plan fits your course of care.
Who you would be seeing
Neck examinations here are done by Dr. Justin Bergin, DC, not delegated. Twenty two years in practice means he has seen the range, from a desk worker with a locked segment to a patient sent over after a rear-end collision with symptoms nobody had explained. His approach is the same in both cases: examine properly, explain what the finding means in words that make sense, treat the structure rather than the complaint, and refer when the neck is not his to treat.
Dr. Justin Bergin, DC, 22 years in practice, performs the examination personally and explains the findings before any program starts. Lakeland: 6595 Florida Ave S, Suite 13, Lakeland. The Villages market office: 929 US-441 #404, Lady Lake. Both offices run the same program.
Getting to us
Patients reach 6595 Florida Ave S, Suite 13 from Dixieland, Cleveland Heights, Harden Blvd, Highland City and the neighbourhoods either side of the Polk Parkway. Florida Southern College is minutes away on Lake Hollingsworth, and many of these necks belong to people who spend the working day at a screen or behind a wheel. From the Lady Lake side, 929 US-441 #404 sits just north of CR 466, a short run from Spanish Springs Town Square, Lake Sumter Landing and Brownwood Paddock Square, and reachable from Summerfield, Oxford, Wildwood, Fruitland Park and Leesburg. Necks there are more often about years of joint wear, reading position and sleeping posture than about a workstation.
Browse every condition on the conditions we treat index.
Options compared, honestly
This is treated very differently depending on who you walk in to see. Here is the full set, including the options this practice does not provide.
| Criteria | Our approachChiropractic adjustment | Cervical decompression | Soft tissue therapy | Muscle relaxant prescription | Cervical facet or epidural injection | Cervical fusion or disc replacement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hands-on or instrument assisted restoration of movement at a cervical segment | Cycling traction that reduces pressure on a cervical disc | Manual and instrument work on guarded muscle | Medication reducing spasm or inflammation for a period | An image guided steroid injection into a joint or near a root | Surgery to stabilise or replace a cervical segment |
| Typically considered when | Segments have lost motion and the muscles around them are guarding | Symptoms follow a nerve pattern into the arm and hand | Range improves on the table then disappears in days | Spasm is severe enough to prevent sleep at first | A specific joint or root is confirmed and care has stalled | Imaging confirms cord or root compression, or strength is dropping |
| Invasive? | No | No | No | No | Minimally | Yes |
| Offered at ChiroMed? | Yes. Billed to insurance, benefits checked first | Yes. Self-pay program | Yes. Delivered alongside adjusting | Not performed here. We do not prescribe | Not performed here. Reasonable before rehabilitation when a source is confirmed | Not performed here. A neck losing strength belongs with a surgeon |
Three of these columns sit here because patients ask about them, not because we sell them. Knowing when an injection or an operation is the right call is part of a useful examination.
What to expect
From evaluation to a plan for your neck pain
A course, not a single visit. The examination decides the length and the cost, and both are written down first.
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01Evaluation
Orthopedic and neurological testing, with imaging on site where it changes the plan.
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02Findings, in plain language
What the examination actually found, and honestly whether this is a case conservative care can help at all.
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03A written program
Which disciplines, how many visits, over what period, and what it costs. Decided before anything begins.
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04Reassessment as it runs
Function is re-measured through the course. If the response says the plan should change, it changes.
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Find out what is actually driving it before choosing a program.
“I have had sich a great experience seeing Dr. Bergin. When other offices have told me I just had muscle damage or the only thing they could do for me was give shots, he said he had others ways to manage my pain and numbness, along with improving mobility. And he was right! I feel so much better!”
“I have had pain in my right upper back quadrant by my shoulder blade for at least a year now and the doctors have been unsuccessful in making the pain go away. I came to Dr. Bergin looking for some help. Within 3 to 4 weeks. My pain in that area is completely gone.”
“Dr. Bergin is phenomenal. Chronic lower back issues led a different doctor to mention back surgery to me. That was not an option I wanted to entertain. After a consult with Dr. B, he was confident that he could help resolve my back issues. I’ve been seeing him weekly to resolve the issue, and I am so pleased with the results so far! More mobility, less pain, and a great customer experience.”
“I bless the day that Dr. Bergin started working on me. I have had long standing pain for so long. After just a few visits my pain left and I feel so good. He is very patient oriented and caring. I regard him highly.”
“Dr. Bergin was instrumental in relieving my back pain which I had for many years. The techniques he used on relieving my back pain were impressive. I been going to chiropractors for years and Dr. Bergin is the best.”
Get in touch
Schedule your neck pain evaluation
Tell us what you are feeling and which office is closer. A member of the ChiroMed team follows up within one business day.
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Send the form
Two minutes. Tell us what hurts and which office is closer.
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We call you back
A real person, within one business day, to find a time that works.
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Exam and answers
History, orthopedic and neurological testing, imaging on site when it changes the plan.
- $47 consultation, exam, X-rays if needed and report of findings
- Payment plans available on the self-pay programs
- 4.8 out of 5 from 225 Google reviews
- Choose Lakeland or The Villages on the form
Neck Pain questions
Tap a message for the honest answer. Call Lakeland (863) 940-3444
Why does my neck hurt more at the end of a workday?
Because sustained posture loads the cervical spine far more than movement does. Holding the head forward for hours keeps the lower segments compressed and the upper back muscles working continuously, so symptoms build rather than spike. The answer is usually restoring movement at the restricted segments and shortening how long the neck holds one position.
the clinic teamCan a stiff neck cause headaches?
Yes. Headaches that begin at the base of the skull and spread forward, often one sided, are commonly referred from the upper cervical joints and the suboccipital muscles. They tend to respond when movement is restored at those segments. Headaches with a different pattern get investigated rather than treated.
the clinic teamHow soon should I be seen after a rear-end collision?
Same day medical assessment if there was loss of consciousness, severe pain, or any weakness or numbness. Otherwise an examination within the first week is sensible, because whiplash symptoms frequently appear a day or two after the crash and early care is easier than care started three months later.
the clinic teamIs it safe to have your neck adjusted?
For the large majority of patients it is a low risk procedure, and the screening beforehand is what keeps it that way. Dr. Bergin examines for the findings that make adjusting inappropriate before doing anything, and where there is doubt he uses instrument assisted or low force techniques, or refers for medical assessment.
the clinic teamDo I need an MRI for neck pain?
Most neck pain does not. Imaging earns its place when symptoms follow a nerve pattern, when strength is affected, after significant trauma, or when a case is not responding as expected. A scan that will not change the plan mostly finds age related changes that were never causing the problem.
the clinic teamWill insurance cover chiropractic care for neck pain?
Chiropractic care at ChiroMed bills insurance and our team verifies your benefits before your first visit, so you know what applies to you rather than to a general policy description. The cervical decompression protocol is self-pay. Anything not covered is quoted in writing before it starts.
the clinic teamSame-week appointments
Start with an examination, not a package.
Find out what is actually driving it before choosing a program.
- 4.8 out of 5 on Google
- $47 consultation, exam and report
- 22 years in practice
Consultation, Exam, X-Rays (If Needed) & Report of Findings: Only $47