There’s nothing worse than having a pain in your neck, and we’re not talking about the figurative statement! Living with an actual pain in your neck can be quite annoying, not to mention debilitating. Some people develop neck pain from poor posture or from craning their necks upwards or downwards too often. Neck pain can also radiate down into your shoulders and back.
Thankfully, there are plenty of options available to you at Equilibrium to help decrease your neck and shoulder pain, and make your day to day routine much more enjoyable. Call our office today to learn more about our physiotherapy, massage therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic services for your pain.
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What is neck/shoulder pain?
In a 2011 study done in Canada, “the prevalence of chronic pain for adults older than 18 years of age was 18.9%. Chronic pain prevalence was greater in older adults, and females had a higher prevalence at older ages compared with males. Approximately one-half of those with chronic pain reported suffering for more than 10 years.” Can you imagine having neck or shoulder pain for more than a decade?
Your neck has a pretty big job: holding your head up all day. Of course, this puts your neck under almost constant stress, and over time, you can develop soreness due to weakened muscles in your spine, degenerative disc disease, and arthritis. Sometimes neck pain is the result of a pinched nerve, which can cause a condition called “cervical radiculopathy,” or pain felt in the shoulder.
Although you might have a sore neck now and then from sleeping on your pillow wrong, severe neck pain happens over time and comes from the uneven distribution of your head’s weight over the spine. Neck pain can limit your range of motion and make the simplest things, such as turning your head, a very difficult task to accomplish.
How can physiotherapy relieve my pain?
It might seem like your neck pain showed up out of nowhere, however, this is a condition that doesn’t appear overnight. To avoid developing neck and shoulder pain, you should always try to avoid staring down at screens or craning your neck upwards. Practicing good posture is also another way to avoid dealing with neck pain.
There are many different techniques in physiotherapy for targeting neck and shoulder pain. Treatment for this condition is focused on strengthening the structures supporting the spine including the tendons, ligaments, muscles, and joints.
Physiotherapy is often recommended by doctors for patients suffering from chronic neck or shoulder pain. A physiotherapist can help you to strengthen your core to decrease existing neck pain, as well as prevent it from happening in the future. Harvard Health lists many core exercises that can help support your spine and prevent neck pain from occurring, including the following:
- Dumbell shrug
- One-arm row
- Upright row
- Reverse fly
- Lateral raise
A physiotherapist can do a full assessment of your condition, ask questions about your neck or shoulder pain, and create a customized routine exercise program for you to do at home. Equilibrium physiotherapy may also help you to avoid the need for medications or surgeries.
How can chiropractic care relieve neck pain?
Treating neck pain begins with determining a diagnosis. Your (town) chiropractor will provide a likely cause of your neck pain after asking you health-related questions or ordering diagnostic tests. Your chiropractor will make elect to help relieve your neck or shoulder pain through adjustment therapy, or cervical manipulation. This involves applying strategic, healing pressure to the joints affecting your neck.
These adjustments ease pain and will allow you to move their necks more freely than you were able to before. A few kinds of adjustments your chiropractor at (practice name) might choose to treat your condition are as follows:
- Cervical drop
- Cervical manual traction
- Cervical mobilization
These techniques may be helping if you are seeking help for neck pain. It’s certainly worth a visit to see if you could benefit!
How can massage therapy relieve neck pain?
Did you know that massage therapy improves blood circulation, which lowers the amount of soreness your muscles experience? It’s true, and the best part is that this kind of therapy is also pretty relaxing as well. Massage therapy can increase a person’s range of motion and flexibility, not to mention improve their overall mood.
Your physiotherapist may choose to use deep tissue massage techniques to manually increase the levels of oxygen and nutrients flowing to the areas you’re experiencing the most pain. This can help to decrease stiffness, and in some cases, it may even help to diminish symptoms altogether.
Contact our clinic for help today
Neck and shoulder pain can get in the way of how you live your life. Thankfully, there are tons of treatment options at Equilibrium. Call us to learn more about our chiropractic, physiotherapy, and massage treatment services today.
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3298051/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/pain/strength-training-relieves-chronic-neck-pain
