About this journal and how it is edited.

Neck Pain Journal is a small publication with a narrow beat. It covers one injury, the neck after a motor vehicle crash, for one place, the St. Louis metro. It is written in the register of a journal because that is the desk's view of how the injury should be handled: dated entries, measured findings, and a record that was written at the time rather than reconstructed later. This entry explains who keeps the desk, what it covers, how it is paid for, and how its facts are sourced.

What the desk covers

Eleven entries, in order. The timeline of a neck injury after impact. The mechanism of a rear-end hit. The lag between strain and pain. The headache that starts at the base of the skull. The overlap between the neck and a concussion. The workweek an injured neck has to survive. The mechanics of getting examined. The record that a first exam produces. The three rooms where that exam can happen. A set of questions, and this page. The desk publishes nothing about back pain, general wellness, or conditions outside its beat, and it has no plans to.

The advertising relationship, stated plainly

This page is advertising. This desk is compensated for featuring Missouri Injury Clinic, and it is not the clinic, not a law office, and not a party to anyone's insurance claim. We publish only the lanes, rooms, and hours the clinic publishes on moinjuryclinic.com. We do not write reviews, rank providers, or give medical or legal advice.

In practice this means the desk recommends one action, a documented exam this week at Missouri Injury Clinic, and every "get seen" link on the site goes to the clinic. The desk chose to say this on every page rather than in a footer nobody reads, because a reader deciding where to take an injured neck deserves to know who is paying for the advice. The editorial entries are written to be true whether or not a reader ever calls the clinic; the recommendation is the desk's, and the disclosure is the reader's.

Where the facts come from

Two sources, kept separate. Facts about the clinic, meaning its lanes, its rooms, its hours, its phone numbers, the name of the chiropractor who runs it, and the three reviews reproduced on the home page, come only from what Missouri Injury Clinic publishes on moinjuryclinic.com. If it is not there, it is not here. The desk does not invent services, staff, prices, insurance arrangements, or statistics, and it does not describe billing or payment terms for a clinic it does not own.

General medical background, meaning what a whiplash-type injury is, why symptoms are delayed, what a concussion is, and when an emergency room is the right call, is drawn from United States government health sources: the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC HEADS UP), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). When an entry states a fact a reader might reasonably doubt, it links the source. When the desk does not have a source, it says "in general terms" and means it.

What the desk will not do

It will not diagnose; a webpage cannot examine a neck. It will not tell anyone a crash was minor or serious. It will not write, solicit, or rank reviews. It will not describe attorney relationships, because it has none to describe and the clinic is a chiropractic clinic run by a chiropractor, not a law office. It will not tell a reader what to say to an insurer or put a number on anyone's claim. It will say, because it is true and lawful, that a documented exam this week protects your health and your options, and that if a claim is ever part of your story, the dated record from the first exam is what everyone will ask for. That is the full extent of the desk's opinion on the subject.

How entries are edited

Each entry is dated with the month it was entered and checked against moinjuryclinic.com on that date. Hours and phone numbers are re-checked when the desk learns of a change, and readers are told on every room listing that hours are worth confirming on the call. Photographs are either editorial scenes made for this desk, captioned for what they show, or real St. Louis landmarks from Wikimedia Commons, credited in the caption as their license requires. No photograph on this desk shows a patient, an injury, or a real crash.

Corrections

If an entry states something about the clinic that the clinic does not publish, or a medical fact that a .gov source contradicts, the desk wants to know. Write to the desk through the clinic's contact page, identify the entry and the sentence, and say what the correct fact is and where it can be checked. Corrections are made in place and the entry's date is updated.

Everything on this desk is educational and general. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for an examination by a licensed clinician who can see your neck.