If the nature of your job involves waking up with neck pain every morning, then you should already be familiar with various forms of neck pain management. The wrong posture while performing different activities can lead to multiple complications.
The severity of pain determines the type of neck pain treatment that should be used. The causes of neck pains are numerous. This article will examine these causes and the different pain management techniques.
Causes Of Neck Discomfort
There are numerous causes of neck pain, but they are not typical symptoms of a more severe problem; some of these causes include:
- Strained Muscles: The posture assumed during work could cause muscle strain. This is due to overuse; hunched over your laptops leads to so much stress on the neck. The littlest things like gnashing your teeth and reading on the bed can also cause such muscle strain.
- Injuries: Whiplash injuries sustained are due to rear-end collisions. This injury occurs after the rapid backward and forward jerking of the neck. The effect causes strained soft tissues in the neck.
- Diseases: Some diseases have effects that are evidenced by neck aches. Cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and meningitis. A viral or bacterial infection causes meningitis which is the most common, and its primary symptom is muscle stiffness.
- Worn-out Joints: Like every other body part, the joints around the neck also wear out with age. The cushions in between your bones degrade with time. This also causes the formation of bone spurs which in turn generates neck pain and reduces the motion of the joints,
- Nerve Compression: The pressure from bone spurs or herniated discs rest on branches of nerves from the spinal cord, causing immense neck ache.
Neck Pain Management
The neck ache treatment varies according to the cause and intensity of the discomfort. Carrying out a proper diagnosis like MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans makes it easier to identify the source and what kind of neck pain management technique to recommend. However, below are some available treatments.
- Physical Therapy as a form of neck pain management: The length of the physical therapy depends on the diagnosis. Different types of physical therapy increase the strength and flexibility of the neck. A physical therapy specialist decides how many days a week the exercise should last.
- Acupuncture: This is an old Chinese neck pain management tradition involving inserting needles at particular points of the body to create a relieving effect. The certified acupuncturist places these needles depending on the type and location of the pain.
- Therapeutic injection procedures: Neck pain management can be provided through cervical spine injections like cervical epidural steroid injections, trigger point injections, and radiofrequency ablation (RFA)
- Medications: OTC analgesics like non-steroidal anti-inflammatory steroids (NSAIDs) are used to reduce pain. However, if the pain continues, the doctor prescribes more potent drugs.
Ice packs or heat can be home remedies for minor neck pain. During severe cases of neck pain management, it’s advisable first to get the correct diagnosis to know the proper treatment to use.