Why does my neck hurt?
Disclaimer: this is not medical advice.
Neck pain can be caused by a lot of different things: falls, hits to the head, car accidents, overuse, posture.
Did you have a traumatic injury ( car accidents/ bike accident/driving accident/fall off ladder or height more than 5 ft)? Are you older than 65? Do you have numbness and tingling in your arms? Can you turn your neck to the left and right afterward? These are all factors to consider after an injury and you should seek medical advice. Go to the emergency or call your doctor or the nurses’s hotline.
Has pain gradually come on and is slowly getting worse? This may be more likea sign of overuse. In physical therapy, we look at your flexibility, your posture and your strength. These measures all paint a picture for us of how you move.
Your movement patterns and tendencies can be the cause of your pain. In fact, most of the people with neck pain that I treat have impairments in their movement patterns that cause or at least contribute to their pain.
How is your posture? Do you spend a lot of your day at a computer? Driving? Slouched forward? Over time, poor positioning can cause your neck muscles to get tight and cause pain.
Stretching, massage, manipulations, cupping and dry needling are all treatments that can help to relieve your pain. They are temporary relief. If you do not address the postures and movement that cause your pain, then it will come back. Physical therapy exercises can help with the pain then the strength and posture training to help stress the cause. Exercise is medicine.