It’s important to know how to relieve a stiff neck because almost everyone has one at some time or another. If you’ve never had one, there are distinctly different categories of stiff neck. One where you’re completely locked up—you wake up, or you’ve had an accident or an injury of some sort and you can’t move at all. In other words, in order to turn your neck, you turn your whole body or you strain your eyeballs to try and back your car up or turn around to look over your shoulder.
The other one would be stiffness in the neck and shoulders. When you try to move, you’re suddenly aware of the problem. Maybe you say to yourself, “Oh man, I feel a spasm or tightness in my neck, shoulder, or upper back area.”
What Causes a Stiff Neck?
There are three main causes of stiff necks.
- First, you can have an actual structural problem going on. What I mean by structural is you can have a deformity in your neck that you were born with. Perhaps the vertebrae aren’t correctly aligned or they don’t have proper spacing if there is some kind of a structural deformity.
- There could be a mechanical problem, meaning something that you’ve done to cause the problem. It can be an injury or an accident that started the problem.
- A subcategory of a mechanical problem is postural changes that occur over time. These can occur from looking down at your cell phone for long periods or being stuck in the same position for a long period of time, or always moving the same way at your desk.
Your desk could be set up so that over time, there are structural changes that lead you to have one side of your body tight and the other side long and weak. Over time, if you continue to create this structural deformity or imbalance in your neck, the muscles will go into spasm or they can actually lock up.
What is the Solution to a Stiff Neck?
As long as the problem does not result from structural changes that you were born with—for example, not having a normal structural alignment in the vertebrae of your neck—physical therapy is a good solution for stiff necks.
Most stiff necks are acquired through movements or faulty postures. Physical therapists are very well suited to treat a stiff neck or the mechanical challenges that you have so that you can function in an optimal posture.
Many times we’ll work on improving someone’s posture regardless of whether the source of the problem is mechanical or structural. We can really promote your ability to function better in your environment so that you don’t get locked up, so that you don’t get further out of balance or out of proper alignment.
The Benefits of Physical Therapy for a Stiff Neck
When your neck is stiff, the problem underlying that stiffness puts undue stress on the muscles, the ligaments, and all the soft tissues around the head, neck and shoulder area. Of course your nerves are involved, because when your neck is inflamed, the vertebrae or the joints themselves can impinge on or pinch nerves.
You can also obviously have muscle spasms or inflammation in the area that’s creating the irritation so that you feel locked up or limited in your ability to move. So when we do PT, we’re going to show you how to improve your posture, and we’ll help you do proper stretches with light pressure.
If you can’t bend to the side or rotate, we’re going to show you how to assist yourself. Many times, we’ll have to get you started. In other words, we will apply therapies to calm those muscles and tissues down that are inflamed. That way, we can get you going, get your joints moving more normally. That makes it easier for you to move.
More Ways Physical Therapy Can Help You
With all the therapies we can offer, we’re going to take you out of the destructive actions or movements and inflammation and make it easier for you to function. When you can hold yourself upright in the correct posture, you don’t strain your body.
Here are some of the therapies we provide for our patients.
- We have manual techniques and modalities to decrease inflammation, like laser and ultrasound if it’s indicated.
- We can also show you how to use ice to treat yourself and give you the ability to get movement going without pain.
- We’re going to give you a home exercise program and a postural improvement program.
The Goal of Physical Therapy Treatment
Whether the stiff neck results from a mechanical or structural problem, there is an optimum position for you to hold yourself in. That position is not necessarily rigid. In fact, we want to restore both mobility and motion. If your neck is stuck one way and you can’t go the other, we’re going to unstick you.
We’re going to free you up so that you can move into a new range of mobility, forward and backwards, side to side. You should also be able to rotate on the three major planes of motion with your neck. As I said, we’re also going to work to improve your postural integrity and strength so that you can maintain a healthy neck and care for yourself.
Yes, there are a lot of causes of stiff necks. Don’t get too focused on that. The cause and solution are usually pretty simple because if you improve the posture, you improve the mobility, you decrease the inflammation, you’re going to be more successful at moving your body freely.
We’d love to show you how to do that. So contact Rebound at (785) 271-5533 If you or a family member needs help, ask to schedule a consultation. See you soon.
