Dealing with Chronic Neck Pain
Any type of pain is no laughing matter. It can ruin your day even your week. When you are dealing with chronic neck pain, it’s a lifetime struggle to stay fit and enjoy life too. As a health care provider, I see many patients with different types of discomfort. Some of it nearly beyond a person’s ability to cope.
Neck pain comes with its own unique problems like stiffness, or trouble sleeping. Rarely is this problem a ‘stand alone’ issue. It interferes with many parts of our life and it shouldn’t.
5 Ways Dealing with Chronic Neck Pain Works
- Maybe you’ve invested in expensive pillows only to wake with headaches and neck pain. Night’s can be long when you shift all every 30 or 45 minutes trying to find a way your cervical spine feels relaxed. By morning you wake exhausted. I once invested in a $100 pillow just to stop my own neck pain, it didn’t do much. Yet changing your pillow can have significant benefits.
Chronic Neck Pain and Fitness
2. Not all patients complain about sleep problems along with their discomfort some have problems staying fit with chronic neck pain. I personally have trouble lifting weights; many times neck muscles become stiffer as you try to do a standard workout. So what can you do to sleep better, and do the fitness program you like best?
My discovery and that of the majority of my patients take it slow and go light. Use lighter weight freestyle works best in most cases. For women 3-10 pounds. Men do well up to 35 lbs. If you’re shaking your head why bother, it’s a start. The right moves can make the difference with these lighter routines.
Stay away from bodybuilding moves where you lift your arms above your shoulders lifting heavy weights. This will help reduce pain. Ask your trainer or Accent On Health for some alternatives. Use a 10 to 20-minute upper body program.
Chronic Neck Pain and Acupuncture or Dry Needling
- One of my clients injured years ago when he fell down stairs at work had messed up his knees. Later he realized his neck was hard and stiff too. By then he’d changed careers, but the pain and tightness continued. In Colorado, a qualified acupuncturist or Chinese Medicine professional are fully trained to provide you with acupuncture and dry needling. Insurance covers these in office visits with us too!
So what can you expect for results? Most patients even ones with chronic pain in the neck found acupuncture reduced the pain by 70-99%. Many discover they maintain the relief for 4-6 weeks or more and then schedule ‘tune-ups’ like you do with dental cleaning, car oil changes, or getting manicures and pedicures. The best part is health insurance covers acupuncture OR dry needling. Let our office make a quick inquiry for you dry needling uses a specific code.
Acupuncture Injection Therapy Better Than Cortisone
- Remember my client with the fall? With acupuncture, we achieved a 60% reduction in pain and an increase in movement of 45%. That’s good since the injury was very old and there is degeneration, but he wanted to try acupuncture injections to see how much better his chronic neck pain would improve.
The great news – he is over 90% pain-free! He has about 80% better movement, and his tightness is gone.
How’s Your Micronutrients?
5. As strange as it sounds you are what you eat and sometimes you’re not. Recently a client came in struggling with insomnia and nothing else. She proudly announced that she had no other problems. So we did a micronutrient test and a Methylation test. These two together revealed a large problem with her ability to absorb minerals in her food or orally. These are genetic problems that are treated in our office. It had taken four months before she began to sleep something she had never done more than 45 minutes at a time her entire life.
So what does this have to do with chronic neck pain? She referred many people some with various types of pain all who had problems with their micronutrients, hormones, or methylation. Sometimes we do acupuncture, add fitness and still don’t fix our discomfort because our body can’t restore balance if our ability to absorb our food is low or our hormones are off.
Personally, I don’t know why you have chronic neck pain my job is to help you find out and get you feeling better. Don’t give up on yourself. Don’t buy into the story that you’re getting old or pain happens with age. This isn’t true! Many of these people are in their 60’s or older. Dealing with chronic neck pain can be difficult some things can improve it and help you.
Find out more by calling our offce. Call today!
