The neck quickly takes something bad: a day-long tense Crouching in front of the computer, long car driving with stierem views of the street or drafts in bed. Even relationship problems can make the neck so stiff that it hurts. Sometimes the pain do not stay on the track of the neck is limited, but extend into the shoulders or arms. Even headaches you can get because of a strained neck. Sometimes can neck pain be so bad that any head and neck rotation is impossible.
Behind the tense muscles put most of the time. Why are the muscles of the neck becomes hard and harder, for various reasons, mostly uniform movements or incorrect posture are the causes. Long-lasting, emotional Stress, muscle tension in the neck can strengthen. In many cases, remains but makes no sense, whence the punishment comes.
Worry sitting often in the neck
Stress and Worry in the Job, complain known the package sizes on the shoulder. Also, heavy physical work, how they make construction workers and nurses, not to do well. About neck pain also Pregnant as well as obese and older people frequently complain. About a third to half of all adults in the world have these problems at least once in the year – women more often than men.
Fortunately, acute disappearance, so sudden neck pain after a few days or weeks. But at about a third of the Affected the symptoms and the symptoms recur or last longer than three months – that is, they are chronic.
Maybe you will get your discomfort with the heat, appropriate Exercises or painkillers. However, you should go to the doctor, if you have a fever or lose weight. The same applies if you have taken a long time cortisone-containing drugs, or had Tumor behind your complaints of a serious disease. To the family doctor, you should go also, if you have the following symptoms: If you can’t move your hands correctly, or to the poor heat – and cold-resistant.
Causes
There are many different causes of neck pain, but in many cases, Doctors find no one. Thing is certain: Stress, Worry, and long Sitting at the Computer to tire the muscles and tense, especially the neck and neck muscles. The pain can manifest itself even as the hum of the skull and the back of the head to the forehead, the temple and the face radiate. Neck pain after a rear-end collision are usually a result of a whiplash injury. In the case of the abrupt impact, the head is thrown back and forth. The muscles and ligaments in the neck are overstretched. You will notice this immediately after the collision or a few hours later. As in the case of a soreness in the neck hurts, the neck is stiff. In a few days, sometimes only after months, is the thing.
Sometimes wear at the cervical spine neck pain. So can be, for example, the Openings are narrowed, the nerves of the spine. As a result, the nerve roots are compressed, and the pain radiates into shoulders and arms. In the areas that the affected nerve supplies, you have feelings then so-called failure: The Bodies are numb or tingling sensation to the touch. Maybe certain reflexes are not more or only in an attenuated Form work. Sometimes the muscles are partially paralyzed.
A herniated disc causes radiating pain usually, however, in the cross and not in the area of the cervical spine. In less than one percent of the cases, a severe disease such as a Tumor, inflammation or a bruise on the spinal cord behind the symptoms.
A brain skin inflammation can also cause a stiff neck. In the case of this serious disease, you also have a high fever. Particularly severe head and neck pain you should immediately let the doctor examine: so he can exclude that they have a special Form of bleeding within the brain, called Subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Diagnosis
First of all, your Doctor will ask you: How strong the pain is, how long they last, where exactly does it hurt? The pain radiates into shoulders and arms, you will feel a tingle, are numb in certain Places? Do not be afraid to tell of their life situation: you might Have Stress or Worries? You say, what you suspect pain, even as the cause of the neck. Important for the Doctor is, what illnesses you had and whether you have a Tumor or had.
A trained orthopedist sees some things already, when you enter the consulting room: From your posture and your movements, he can draw first conclusions. With his hands he touched, then the cervical vertebrae, so he can track tension. Perhaps he sensed with his fingers in the muscle tissue called trigger points that can trigger pain. He then holds her head with both hands – for example, on the front of the chin and the back of the head – and look how well the head moving and turning: forward and backward, to the right and to the left.
The doctor will examine your reflexes and your strength
The pain radiates into one or both arms, the doctor will check whether certain nerve roots are irritated. This neurological examination to test the muscle strength and reflexes. A short blow on the biceps tendon when it is flexed Arm should, for example, the forearm upwards. This Reflex is one side weaker than on the other, the doctor has a clue for the possible cause of your complaints.
In a further study, the Value of the test, stroking the Doctor with Hand on shoulders or arms. So it tests whether certain nerve roots are irritated. This is the case, if at the touch of certain Bodies tingling or numb to the touch. On the basis of Sensitivity testing and Reflex testing professionals cannot determine whether their complaints may come from affected nerve, but other causes.
X-ray is usually unnecessary
Investigations with imaging techniques are pain in the neck in the rule superfluous. Even if an x-ray image of wear phenomena would show the cervical spine, not necessarily the core of the neck problem.
Useful x-ray is on the other hand, if your pain is chronic, and at night reinforce. In other cases, further tests are recommended: if you are in an accident, a Tumor suffering or long-term cortisone-containing medication. Or if your neck is so stiff that you can move it around as well as not more. A Computer-tomography can show, for example, a bone fracture, a magnetic resonance imaging a possible herniated disc.
Therapy
What treatment is best for you depends on the cause of your complaints. If you have no serious disease, the doctor will recommend you only to ignore the neck pain in everyday life – even then, if the pain radiates into arms and shoulders.
A neck brace you do not need to do that: The longer you hold your neck still, the more likely the risk that your pain will last, so chronically. Only if your cervical spine after a whiplash injury is unstable, or very violent pains, you can wear for a short time the medical necklace.
Usually helps in the neck, a treatment that combines various methods of pain. One of them is the so-called chiropractic. In this technique, the Doctor tries to move with light pressure on the affected parts of the body, for example, the cervical spine, and to stretch the muscles. Or it pushes strongly and quickly to certain Places, the neck joints to stimulate appropriate movements.
You stay loose!
Studies have shown that chiropractic treatment helps, especially if the Affected train at the same time When the upper body muscles with special Exercises strengthen, stabilize and stretch. However, it is not clear from the studies whether the movement training alone would not have been enough. In the case of a whiplash injury chiropractic treatment is not appropriate, at least in the first pain phase. Better massage, and movement exercises.
You have pain emanating roots of the nerves that come from relaxation techniques, Loosening Exercises, or back school in question. Acupuncture can chronic neck pain.
Surgery: only in case of emergency
It is all of a sudden quite bad with your neck, you can also take a pain reliever: tablets with the active substances Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Diclofenac help. Some substances can also lubricate as ointments (4.9) to the appropriate section. In the case of pain, the resulting roots of the nerves, you may need stronger medication. Not help this and you will have tension at the same time, you can ask your doctor to so-called muscle Relaxants (4.9): These medicines relax in a chemical way and ease the pain.
In some cases, the doctor injects a cortisone-containing drug directly to the nerve roots. This injection helps, if your pain is chronic and a slipped disc, or a worn-out spine be caused. He uses this syringe, while lying in the tube of a Computer tomography scanner: So he can see where he may sting. Only if you have been suffering for weeks and increasingly important muscles can no longer properly move, cutting the doctor the subject of Operation.
Tips
You don’t keep your head as straight as possible: This not only looks good, but is good for you also. And you get used to it, the handset of the Phone between the ear and the shoulder to pinch.
They take breaks and regularly, no matter whether you need to sit for a long time in the car or working on the Computer. This relieves all of the stressed muscles and relaxes you. You stretch your back, make Loosening Exercises!
A well equipped workplace, helps neck and back to avoid pain: on your Desk, office chair and Computer so that the screen is at eye level. A posture like a turtle – back, neck out-stretched – harm to the muscles. The knees should be Sitting a little lower than your hips.
Small stretching Exercises in the workplace always help
Stretch Desk exercises-stools to help Pull the shoulders, and then let it fall again. You tilt your neck gently to one side and hold it for 30 seconds in this Position. You try to make this in so many directions as possible.
Heat is a balm for a pain in the neck: a hot water bottle, a heat pack from a pharmacy or a warm shawl for temperatures, which can take the muscles the tension.
Try out, whether strength training can help you. Chronic neck pain caused by tension, so proven to be alleviated.