5 Things You Need to Know About Neck Pain
1. It could be your posture
Your mum always told you to sit up straight, and she was right! Having a forward rounded shoulder and/or poked chin posture puts extra strain on your neck and stretches the muscles of your neck and shoulders, causing them to get tired and spasm
2. Neck Pain can cause shoulder, arm or hand pain
The nerves that supply our shoulder, shoulder blades, diaphragm, arm, wrist and hand all come from our neck. Irritation to joints surrounding the neck or even a disc bulge in the cervical spine can cause us to feel pins and needles or numbness in our upper limb or may even affect power. Sometimes these symptoms are present without neck pain, even though the root of the problem is the neck
3. Acute wry neck
Have you ever woken up unable to move your neck? This is called a wry neck and can be caused by two structures, the facet joint or the disc inside the facet joint. The secondary muscle spasm contributes to a lot of the joint locking and your inability to move
4. Whiplash
Whether you have been rear-ended or hit in the back of the head with a soccer ball, a whiplash associated disorder is not a nice one to deal with. The injury occurs when a posterior force causes the neck to bend into an S shape – stretching the ligaments between the vertebras of the neck in ways they weren’t meant to and leaving you with pain and muscle spasm
5. Headaches
There are many types of headaches we suffer from and two that physiotherapists can help with include tension headaches and cervicogenic headaches. Feeling a headache behind your eye is one of the symptoms a cervicogenic headache can have and can be helped by a physiotherapist…
By Emily Georgopoulos (APAM)
POGO Associate
