Skip to main content

Getting Rid of your Pain in the Neck

What if you had severe, chronic neck pain and your doctor didn't have a clue what to do for you? That was the place I was in during my early 30s: typing was agony, I couldn't press the Dictaphone buttons with my left hand hard enough to engage them, and I was too stiff to shimmy in dance class. Most of what I recall of an outdoor performance of a Shakespeare play of that time (the one where they were stuck on an island) regards squirming around trying to get comfortable. (If you were sitting behind me, I apologize.)

A friend referred me to a chiropractor, who diagnosed two pinched nerves in my neck and between my shoulders. Nothing was torn or fractured, and IME, when that's the case, doctors who practice traditional Western medicine won't be able to diagnose anything. That's not to say you shouldn't see an M.D. If something is torn or broken, they can help where a chiropractor and the treatments I'm going to talk about cannot.

After several chiropractic treatments, my neck and shoulder recovered, but I still had niggling pain and occasional flare-ups. Over the years, I've found three ways of dealing with this--and I'm happy to say my neck and shoulder pain are gone. Here's what I've tried and the results I've gotten.

Acupressure. It's especially helpful for me when I have tension. My mom loves getting acupressure when her neck, shoulders and arms hurt. For most of us, this is easy to do for yourself and it can bring relief within a few minutes. All you do is press your fingertips into appropriate pressure points. A book like Acupressure's Potent Points can show you how.

Yoga. When I had continual neck pain, I did yoga neck exercises every morning, and it really helped. The exercises came from the 1959 edition of Yoga for Americans. I ignored the advice on coffee enemas and did the neck exercises daily. Every morning, I did each one five times, slowly, and didn't stretch to the point of discomfort. The exercises were moving my head side to side in a big NO motion, nodding in a big YES motion, moving my ear closer to my shoulder moving only my head, moving my head forward without tilting it (imagine a turtle poking its head out of its shell), and gently rolling my head around each direction. Often, my neck would pop and feel better when I moved my ear towards my shoulder. But if it didn't, I gave up after a few tries. Continuing to stretch just made it worse, so I waited and tried later.

I don't do this every day anymore, but it's helpful if I've had my neck in a strange position, like yesterday when a complete stranger in the seat behind me on the bus talked my ear off about the squirrel under her couch, her three dogs, two cats, guinea pigs, aquarium and colostomy bag.

Strength Training. Last year I started doing some abdominal exercises that involved keeping your head just off the floor for a few minutes. It was hard to do, but some weeks after I'd started, my neck pain was gone--surprise! My neck was stronger and free of pain. I used a video called Ballet Conditioning; now I use the Slow Burn system. (And I no longer need the yoga every day. But it's there in case I see the menagerie lady again.)
Labels:

Comments

Shoulder Pain Coach Rick said…
I suffered from an impinged shoulder 2 years ago. And what had provided me long term relief are Simple Stretches, Range Of Motion and Strength Exercises. But your tips are great too.
September 30, 2010
Lori Miller said…
Hi, Rick. I'm glad to hear you resolved your shoulder pain. You mention active rest on your site--I think rest is definitely underrated.
September 30, 2010
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...
1 comment
Read more

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that  L. plantarum  may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have  L. plantarum  bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with  Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color.  Special equipment Quar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cardio: A Waste of Valuable Dance Time

"I'd rather hold a girl in my arms than a football." -Joe DeCicco, friend and dancing fanatic Have you heard that it takes a woman 77 hours of exercise to lose a kilogram of fat? (For us Americans, that's half a pound.) That's according to a study cited by Dr. John Briffa .(1) The women who huffed and puffed three hours a week for a year ended up 4.4 pounds lighter than the sedentary women. That doesn't surprise me: my own weight loss involved a lot less exercise than what I'd been doing. I did no cardio workouts, just strength training . I had more time and energy for dancing, which is a stress reliever, helps keep me in shape, and it's a ton of fun. It's not expensive to dance (as long as you stay away from the studios). I've found excellent lessons at clubs where the teachers really care about the students getting it. Here in Denver, there are dancing clubs that are run by nonprofit organizations, where the prices are reasonable and...
1 comment
Read more

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...
6 comments
Read more