Neck Pain

Is your neck pain stopping you from looking over your shoulder to reverse the car? Is it preventing you from looking up to change the light bulb that’s blown? Is the pain bothering you at night? Or has it been coming on for the past 8 years and you’ve ignored it in the hope that it will just go away?

We see this kind of problem every day!

Our patients find that after treatment they can return to their normal activities, whether that be skydiving, tending the allotment, picking up the kids, running marathons or sitting at work.

Call us for help - you'll be pleased you made the decision to get out of pain.

• Tight muscles – if you’ve pulled a muscle or over-strained it you can end up with pain that radiates into the neck and shoulders. You might find it aches until you turn to one side, at which point the pain becomes much worse.
• Facet lock/joint restriction - the joints of your neck can get stuck and not move properly. This sometimes happens after you’ve suddenly turned to look over your shoulder, or if you’ve been sleeping in an awkward position, or if you’ve had a bang on the head. This sort of pain used to be called wry neck or torticollis and is usually sudden, acute and debilitating.
• Spondylosis, spondyloarthrosis - These terms really mean there is some wear and tear in the joints, either due to age or to previous injuries. But don’t panic! Do not think that it means you have to put up with the pain. Wear and tear is part of the aging process and everyone has it. It’s like having wrinkles! Sometimes it causes symptoms, sometimes not. Sometimes little bits of rough bone develop on the vertebra – these are called osteophytes.

  If you’ve got spondylosis in the neck the chances are you can’t turn it easily, it crunches when you do turn it, and you have a mixture of pains ranging from an ache to sharp pain.

  Pain caused by wear and tear can often be treated, and any neck pain expert can help you with exercises to do at home that will help reduce the chances of the pain coming back. Remember you can also get muscle strains and joint restrictions on top of the wear and tear – pain isn’t always simple!

• Trapped nerve – nerves don’t really get trapped, but they can get irritated or compressed by other structures in the area such as prolapsed (slipped) discs, osteophytes (bony growths) and tight muscles. The symptoms include not just neck pain, but pain into the arm, pins and needles and numbness.
• Stress – there is growing evidence that stress, depression and other emotional issues can aggravate pain. This doesn’t mean the pain is all in your head, it just means your emotional state increases your sensitivity to pain, and something that was once bearable, becomes unbearable.
• Shoulder Problems - Neck pain can also be caused by issues coming from the shoulders, upper back and the upper ribs. The neck has very strong muscles connecting it to the upper ribs, so don’t assume that the problem is just in the neck! Remember that old song ‘the knee bone connected to the thigh bone…’ it might be a bit basic as songs go, but it’s actually not too far off the mark!

Sometimes even though the problem is in your neck, you feel the pain as a headache. The pain often radiates up over the top of the head to the front and may be accompanied by limited movement in the neck (thought a lot of people don’t notice this!)