Why do we care about internal jugular vien

Many people have been asking us why we measure the internal jugular vein in our patients and some have asked well shouldn't the internal jugular vein collapse completely when you're in the upright position and if you dissect all of the literature it shows that while the internal jugular vein should close off to some degree when you're upright that it still should be open and from our best research we try to get the internal jugular vein to be open to an area of approximately 20 when you're in the upright sitting or standing positions when you're laying down or supine it should be closer to 80 or 100 millimeters in area besides what everyone already knows that if you were to have your internal jugular vein severed that it could be a life-ending event what's the more practical day-to-day relation to the internal jugular vein in our health we measure the internal jugular vein as an immediate way to assess whether there is pressure on any of the contents in the Carotid sheath and the Carotid sheath contains the vagus nerve the Carotid artery in the internal jugular vein in lying right outside of the Carotid sheath are really important sympathetic nerves because the Carotid sheath contains many of these vital nerves and vasculature when we get an immediate reading on how compressed the internal jugular vein is we can get an indirect understanding of abnormal forces or pressure that are being put on Our arteries on some of our most important nerves in our neck including the vagus nerve and a little bit deeper to that our sympathetic chain which controls so many things in our body from our ability to rest and digest to appropriately respond to situations that require us to be in fight or flight or release norepinephrine or an epinephrine in response to something that requires us to take immediate action in our practice we measure the internal jugular vein from C1 bilaterally all the way down under the clavicle until it becomes a subclavian vein we often find in individuals that the internal jugular vein is only getting completely blocked in one area maybe up near C1 in the middle of the neck or right before it passes under the clavicle and this information is very helpful because the internal jugular vein the Carotid sheath and the other very vital neurovascular structures in that area can cause different symptoms so if somebody has a carotid sheath blockage right next to their clavicle this could lead to them also having impingement or irritation of the phrenic nerve which passes in a comparable course as it travels under the clavicle and innervates the diaphragm so people could have difficulty with breathing from a compression around that area in the middle of the neck there are more fibers that are related to proprioception within our neck so somebody that has irritation there blockage of the internal jugular vein in compression on the spindle fibers in this area because also consider that the Carotid sheath is surrounded anteriorly by the sternocleidomastoid a little bit by the omohyoid posteriorly by the anterior scalene and also bordering the Carotid sheath is the longest coli which is deep to it so we find breakdowns in people's cervical spine curvature inactivity in certain muscles and we rehabilitate each of these areas in order to bring strength and integrity so the spine can hold itself in a position where the Carotid sheath and all of those important neurovascular structures are flowing freely without impingement or blockage of blood flow going in and out of the brain it's very important that there's a communication Network that leaves our brain to our body and also travels back from our body to our brain that's unimpinged that's unimpeded that there are no interference with the nervous system and a way for us to get an immediate reading of the quality of that communication network is through the internal jugular vein which is very easy to visualize to quantify and to get also qualitative information from we've seen people where the internal jugular vein is a little bit in spasm when they're in certain positions we've seen people where the Carotid artery has backflow of blood when you get to a certain part in the neck and this information that we get combined with our digital motion X-ray and other examination findings help us to get an edge on some of these very difficult neurologic and neck related conditions so thank you for watching and in the very near future we will release more information how measuring the internal jugular vein in the neck can help us be able to help you regain Health with some of these hard neck conditions that are becoming more and more prevalent in the 21st century as we just continue to use technology more and more and more which is altering the physiology of our necks in a way that's never been seen before so thank you again for following and we look forward to staying in touch.