Chronic Neck Pain – A Pain in the Neck (Literally!) So, you’ve got chronic neck pain? That lovely, persistent pain that feels like your neck’s been carrying the weight of the world. Does it feel like your head is too heavy for your neck? This is generally not because your head has suddenly become heavier, this is because longer term your neck has slowly become weaker. Whatever the case, it’s the gift that keeps on giving, it can feel like it is never going to improve. However, with the right hands on care and exercise program to strengthen the area improvement will slowly but surely happen.
Yes, getting a bit older. Over time this happens to everyone, this doesn’t mean that we give up and let the pain win. Whilst we cannot improve the actual wear and tear in the joints, by improving the way that everything works around them the wear and tear becomes irrelevant. If an eighty year old is not suffering from neck pain is it because they haven’t got any wear and tear or is this because everything around the area is working well enough so that the wear and tear is irrelevant. I think you know the answer!
Are you someone that likes to look like a giraffe trying to find its own belly button whilst using your phone or ipad, or potentially old school and reading a book. Then this one is most likely you. The muscles at the front of the neck start to get very tight and the muscles at the back of the neck start to think they are not required anymore and go on holiday. This leads to the joints getting very tight and annoyed and the smaller muscles in your neck to start causing things like headaches or dizziness.
These are generally not much fun as not only do you get neck pain but you also get some lovely symptoms down one or both of your arms as well. This can be extremely painful at times. You may also be getting pins and needles, numbness or weakness into your arms, its a barrel or laughs all around.
These issues are generally slightly trickier to get under control than neck pain without arm symptoms but it is still possible. We may also require an MRI scan to assess the extent of the nerve compression in the area. Even though these are slow and trickier to treat, most patients with this condition will still find a full resolution of symptoms with conservative care.
Yes, this joyous thing that happens in most of our lives at one time or another. This will generally not be the only cause of your neck pain, this will usually be in addition to one of the above causes. Can we still help, yes of course we can, however, we will need your help as well in addressing the underlying cause of your stress. If we can work on the mechanical reasons for the pain and you can work on getting your stress levels to a reasonable place then as a team we can get this better! Along with increased periods of stress we also tend to get reduced levels of sleep, unfortunately this also can increase the inflammation levels in our body, this makes everything a bit sore. This is another factor that we will need to get under control in order to improve these symptoms long term.
