Neck Pain and Stiffness

One out of four American adults has seen a healthcare professional for significant neck or back pain within the past year. Nearly 65% said they had done so at some point in their lives, according to Gallup polls. Studies show neck pain impacts your physical, social, and mental well-being.

Your neck is a very delicate area of your body. Soft tissues, such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments, coupled with spinal structural components, form your neck. The top seven bones in the spinal column that form your neck are called the cervical vertebrae. The bones are linked together by joints and lubricated by synovial fluid. These small joints between your vertebraes with your neck muscles, allow you to move your head in any direction.

There are also nerve branches that go through the neck, blood vessels, alongside with braches of the lymphatic system. In the neck, you have other essential organs, like your tongue, your voice box, and your thyroid. So having a healthy, pain-free neck is very important. Structural abnormalities, an injury, or tension caused by stress can all negatively affect the function of your neck, and unpleasantly disrupt your life.

Pain in a neck on either side of it can reasonably quickly deplete you out of your mental energies. And through off your routine. Severe neck pain can be the cause of not getting enough sleep, which makes people cranky. Acute neck pain can be the cause of not being entirely focused on tasks at hand because of the mental occupation with the pain. The desire for the pain to stop, the aversion towards the whole neck-pain, lock of sleep thing can create enormous agitation in us. The anxiety, crankiness, and exhaustion negatively affect our behaviors. We start projecting all of these negativities out onto the relationships at home and work, whether in-person interaction or digital interaction.

The reality is that everyone had, or has, or will have neck pain at some point in their life. Some will have multiple times; in some cases, it’ll be nothing, in other cases, it’ll become a severe condition of the neck. So being a bit in the know on the subject of neck health is a good idea, in my opinion. Unless you like to have a pain in a neck?!

Many people experience neck pain or stiffness occasionally. In many cases, it’s due to poor posture, overuse, and excessive stress and pressure. Any physical abnormalities, inflammation, sports injuries, motor vehicle accident injuries, and of course, severe stress that creates chronic tension can be causes for your neck pain or neck stiffness.

Sometimes, neck pain is caused by an injury from a fall, from an impact during contact sports, or whiplash. It is common to have multiple causes of neck issues because the neck is a very delicate part of your body. Thus it needs care and attention.

Most of the time, neck pain isn’t a severe condition and can be relieved within a few days. But in some cases, neck pain can indicate serious injury or illness and requires planned clinical care, some cases surgery. If you have neck pain that continues for more than a week, if it’s severe, and is accompanied by other symptoms, please seek medical attention immediately. It is better to take care of your neck issue immediately than neglect it and only to have a bigger problem later on.

What are signs and symptoms of neck pain?

Here are some signs and indicators for possible neck issues. Pain that’s often worsened by holding your head in one place for 10 seconds and longer, while driving or working at a computer. Muscle tightness and spasms, feeling like your neck and shoulder area locked up. Another sig is a decreased range of mobility, having limited ability to move your head side to side, back and forth, or in rotation. Headache, migrants, dizziness, sensations of numbness, and tingling down the arms are also indications for neck related issues.

What to do if you’re having a peck pain?

With physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, or a massage therapy treatments, your neck will stop hurting in a few days most likely. At home, you can use an ice pack on your neck for the first 2 to 3 days to help lower swelling. Ice is good for inflammation. After that, use moist heat heating pad to help your neck heal. There are also therapeutic exercises you can do at home, or at your work desk to gently stretch your neck muscles and mobilize it.

How do I think about neck pain?

Here’s a conceptual but practical explanation of how we achieve our clinical goals for patients with patients.

For healing to take place in your body, in this case in your neck, your neck’s condition and its qualities and characteristics need to be exchanged from negative conditions, qualities, and characteristics into more positive qualities, characteristics, a better condition.

When you’re having neck problems and pain firstly, you need to change its qualities and characteristics. But what are these qualities and characteristics?

If your neck feels tight and heavy, those characteristics must be exchanged into a looser, lighter, more fluid characteristic. Pay attention to your neck, scan it, what do you feel? What types of qualities, characteristics, sensations do you notice in your neck?

Is your neck flexible? If the answer is no it’s not flexible; then you need to change the neck’s inflexible characteristic into flexible quality. If your neck’s range of motion is limited, then the range characteristic of your neck needs to be changed from limited range into extended range. The more attributes of your neck you’ll change from negative into positive the better and faster will be your neck’s rehabilitation and recovery.

So how do we do it? How do we change the negative characteristics of your neck issues into more positive, more beneficial conditions?

In most cases, acupuncture, physical therapy, therapeutic exercises, chiropractic adjustments, and clinical massage therapy can help to relieve your neck pain. Combination or a mix of manual therapy, somatic therapies, and relaxation techniques coupled with therapeutic exercise for conditioning of the tissue and posture will get you the desired results. My style of clinical massage therapy works very effectively for neck pain, neck stiffness, and other chronic neck conditions.

So, please give me a call or email me about your neck issues, let’s talk and determine if I can be of any help to you.

Usually, for the first treatment, people come in for a sixty-minute treatment to try and see if it would work for them. And typically, they feel little better right after the first visit. They leave my office with a little less pain and a bit bigger smile. For years patient’s feedback has been that after a clinical session with me, they feel better for a few days after the session as well. Based on your condition and my findings from the first visit, I’ll make recommendations for a treatment plan. I will also make suggestions about what else could be done to improve your situation and prevent future development of neck issues. So, please give me a call at 732-766-0897 or email me at hi@zar.ink so we can talk about your condition and hopefully help you feel better.

To learn more about Hayk’s Clinical Massage style and to make your clinical massage appointment in Cranford NJ Call 732-766-0897 or email hi@zar.ink

Based on your requests and needs, every clinical massage session will be tailored and personalized for your specific needs and the results you desire.

By appointments only.

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