To ask for your advice on chronic neck pain/tension?

[purpletablet]

I’ve been struggling with ongoing neck and shoulder pain that’s waking me up multiple times a night. It’s been getting worse recently, and I wake up feeling stiff, sore, and have a headache. I’ve tried new pillows, different sleep positions, mattress toppers, I’ve been to the osteopath, I do yoga and different stretches but nothing seems to help.

It eases off slightly during the day but as soon as I go to bed the cycle starts again. It’s like no matter what position I’m in I can’t get my neck to relax so I constantly feel the tension.

I’ve spoke to the gp about this before but they were less than useless. I’m thinking about asking if they’d be willing to prescribe a short course of muscle relaxants to see if that could help reset everything.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

i have this and i end up with migrains from knots in my neck and shoulder.

I saw a osteopath who corrected my full body. He recommends booking in every 6 month. He then advised me to get a sports massage monthly or bi monthly. So i do. They focus on releasing the tension from shoulders, neck, jaw, face and it works wonders.
I also have a massage gun at home if needed. If it flares, i take naproxen or deep heat on my neck. Hope that helps

A physio sorted mine out. Don't waste time with other options like I did, just go and get it sorted.

I had / have this issue. Saw all sorts of doctors, including specialists who wanted to do horrendous procedures or put me on pills for life. I refused.

You need a good physio - but not just any physio. The ones I saw were useless. I eventually found some online videos from specialist physios that showed me how to stretch my chest & upper arm muscles where they join, and stretch my neck properly, and do it three times daily to start. Instant improvement.

Massages from physio didn't help me as it didn't address the issue, just release a bit if the tension. I've also had to learn to not hold stress or anxiety by tensing my shoulders & better posture.

Yup, massages and similar are just temporary relief, to fix the issue you need to fix the cause which is nearly always poor posture and you fix that with stretches and exercises.

Can you link this please?

Can you link this please?

Would recommend acupuncture, immediate relief and lasting improvement with regular visits. Combined with stretch routine and laser treatment.

It’s a Tempur symphony pillow.

I have had something similar and the constant pain is incredibly debilitating. It made me feel so unwell all the time, it was awful. I’m now past that and I put it down to three things that i changed:

1. I bought myself a buckwheat pillow so that when I was in bed, I could literally wedge my head and neck in the position that bore no pain and mostly I would stay n that position. For me, I needed to stretch the vertebrae in that area, a buckwheat pillow can really help with that. I bought mine from here: https://putnams.co.uk/products/organic-buckwheat-hull-pillow

2. I bought one of these neck stretchers and used it every day at least once. It’s very supportive and allowed everything in my neck to expand over time. This is similar to the one I bought.https://www.amazon.co.uk/RESTCLOUD-Alignment-Chiropractic-Light-Blue/dp/B0DKJ4TJBM/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=2FWQ4BEAPLJFK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.X14R7Hx1D-UVRL-uXKSni3kIGYSQBeHvFWFQtWpNbzIbNYryiTwo4JHmA8YwFyD2yXJnKF0FqcWd_PvSxO83HWe38pDRIrZ2JaA2kbgri1KW2y75GBfvDLrlxH2q548-bAOJzH9gVB_vtGRgpfL9ESTtIzjOo_f-Imew477OJAiISTtoNqGU2-R4xd5Tt-ASpZfai6lJbkowWQVxhTXEP5CwLs0MfN-VVw3qBkit4-W7k5IdhRHJ_ygaFqHW0MtZIwE7njXUacOqU73XIW03oHDFLFaDYb9oSEh35B_zVEY.TdcLUusKj487onS64Mel0QwlzYSmp7ORF1zDGgxDmS4&dib_tag=se&keywords=neck%2Bstretcher%2Bfor%2Bneck%2Bpain&qid=1746129312&sprefix=Neck%2Bstr%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

3. when the pain was really bad I would use a neck collar like this: https://www.essentialaids.com/orthopaedic-aids/head-neck-orthopaedic-supports.html

Another thing that I have found incredibly useful for any aches and pains in any part of my body is cutting out gluten. It might be person specific, since being in perimenopause I have developed a gluten intolerance. Since cutting it out I feel so much better everywhere in my body.

This is exactly what I was going to say! Except I like the groove pillow best, and I found sports massages really good, normal massage didn't help long term.

For OP - I was (still am unfortunately) carrying around so much resentment and anger, it felt as it was a huge sack with a rope tied around my neck physically dragging me down, and my posture unfortunately reflects that. I prayed over it and that did help, if you're religious. I hope you'll feel better soon

@purpletablet how are you now ? X

Where is the pain? There is a muscle that runs from your neck to the bottom of your shoulder. I thought it was my shoulder that was the issue but it was my neck. The physio recommended some gentle neck exercises - just moving my head to each side. It helped the pain immediately but took about 6 weeks to heal fully. Using a lap pillow helped too when reading or looking at my phone.

@ajw7 yes! It runs down to my shoulder! Top of my neck down ti my shoulder, its an annoying headache. How long did your headaches go on for? X