NECK PAIN
What is neck pain?
Neck pain is pain that can be localized from the skull edge down to the neck and shoulders.
Many Danes experience tension in the neck and neck muscles. These can be a cause of headaches, acute neck pain, reduced mobility and dizziness.
We have gathered the most common diagnoses on the page here, which you can read:
Acute hold in the neck
Many have at some point experienced an acute "neck injury", for example after a bad night's sleep with a new pillow or sleeping in a bad position on board a plane. It can feel as if the neck is "locked" and nasal movement with pain at the outer positions is often the biggest symptom.
In most cases, these symptoms go away after a few days or weeks.
If no improvement is seen, it may be because the nervous system's emergency preparedness has increased - ie. that the brain tries to protect your neck, for example, by tensing up the muscles and creating pain.
Treatment:
Movement exercises are important to restore normal tension in the muscles and help the nervous system to lower the brain's alertness.
Joint manipulation can have good relief and help increase mobility in the neck.
Whiplash
Good advice
Neck pain
Avoid catastrophic thoughts
Movement is good for tension
Prioritize your sleep
Whiplash is a term typically used in neck trauma, where the soft parts of the neck (muscles, tendons, ligaments) are stretched or sprained. It is most often seen in connection with. collisions where the neck gets a sudden stretch.
The reaction may occur some time after the trauma and manifest itself in the form of markedly increased tension in the muscles around the neck and neck. In addition, you may experience the following symptoms: headache, dizziness, visual disturbances, fatigue, stiffness, discomfort.
Treatment:
It may be a good idea to be careful not to strain your neck too much in the first few days after the injury. After a few days, it is very important that you start moving your neck as normally as possible, within the pain limit. In this way, you reduce the risk of developing prolonged pain because you are slowly working to lower the brain's alertness.
The duration of the symptoms can vary depending on the extent of the damage. If you do not experience improvement within a few weeks, contact a physiotherapist who can help lay out a treatment plan.
Disc herniation
Disc herniation in the neck can occur spontaneously, as well as in violent trauma.
Between the vertebrae sit our discs, which are intended to act as "shock-absorbing" devices and relieve the pressure in the spine. In the middle of each disc is a core which is pressed backwards towards the edge of the discus when we, for example, bend forward, and vice versa when we bend backwards.
In a prolapse, the nucleus is smoked out of the disc itself and can in some cases press on nerves. This can cause a feeling of pain in the neck radiating down the arm.
Treatment:
Previously, it was recommended that people with disc herniation should stay calm, avoid forward bending because it could aggravate the symptoms and condition.
Recent research, however, suggests that this is often not the case and that exercise and normal activity are actually incredibly important in reducing pain and shortening the period of illness.
There may be cases where surgery is a necessity and the right solution. However, this should be the last resort as surgeries are major traumas for our nervous system.
Chronic neck pain
If you have had pain that has lasted for 3 months, it is described as chronic or prolonged pain.
The essential thing in chronic neck pain is that the pain at this time can no longer be attributed to the structures that may. has had to be damaged. Most structures (bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments) should be healed after 6 weeks.
Below is a figure from særtevidenskab.dk
In other words, the table, which myetevidenskab.dk also concludes, shows that pain is not always associated with structural changes.
When the pain has been going on for a long time, it is more about the hypersensitivity of the nervous system. The brain can, as a protective mechanism, create the experience of pain, as well as the brain can create muscle tension, headaches, dizziness, discomfort and much more.
At OPTIMUS - Physiotherapy & Pain Clinic, we have a good effect with treatment of chronic (long-term) pain using a neurological form of treatment: P-DTR, combined with teaching pain understanding and training aimed at challenging and overcoming the nervous system's protection mechanisms.
Do you have a lot of tension in your neck?
Restricted movement?
Radiation to arms?
Book an appointment and let us help you with your challenges!
