Neck pain may be caused by various factors, most of them not severe. A lot of patients with neck pain state that their head feels heavy at the end of the day. This can be caused from leaning over your workbench or leaning into your computer or other work related activities. This can all be helped with strengthening and stretching the proper muscles.
Common Injuries:
Muscle Strains – Overuse of the neck muscles where they are fatigued and eventually strained.
Degenerative Joints – This is wear and tear with age that can cause osteoarthritis, which can cause pain and stiffness in the neck.
Disk Disorders – Just like in your low back, the cushioning of your disks become dry, stiff, and can narrow the spaces around nerves the spinal column. This can cause symptoms down your arms into your fingers in more severe cases.
Whiplash Injuries – this is caused by a rear end collision causing the head to jerk forward and backward, stretching the soft tissues beyond their limits.
Your therapist will evaluate you to determine what is the underlying cause of the problem, and then use this to direct treatment. Your treatment may include manual therapy to decrease muscle guarding & pain, exercises to improve mobility and strength and possibly modalities to control pain.
