Pain in the neck

Why this neck pain, and how can massage therapy help?

Neck pain is a general term, really, that can be a vague umbrella for a wide range of symptoms, and also a symptom, or result, of a spectrum of possible underlying causes.

You may have a rotation in your spinal vertebrae, causing you to wince in pain when you rotate your head to look over your shoulder.
Or maybe it’s those tense, painful, sometimes throbbing muscles right at the base of your skull – relentlessly holding on while you type away at your computer.
For some it’s tight trapezius muscles that won’t let go, giving you a broad band of pain and general tension, from your shoulder right up your neck to the base of your skull.

As you can see, neck pain can be as varied as the people suffering from it. So it’s important to get a sense of what is causing yours in particular in order to work to alleviate it in a long lasting way.
This is where a Registered Massage Therapist can help. A good RMT is trained to see your body with educated eyes that can decipher causes from symptoms. What your written case history, and initial assessment will allow you to decipher together – is where your neck pain may be coming from in particular.

Often your neck pain and tension – is the result of stretched, uncomfortable, compromised tissue – tissue that is being forced to adapt to something else going on in your system. Structures being forced to adapt by stretching and distorting will tell your central nervous system they are in trouble.
Your trapezius muscles may be screaming to you because they are being forced to stretch as a result of your shoulders being rolled forward toward your chest from working with your arms in front of you every day.
Those balls of tension at the base of your skull are likely upset because they are being forced into working extra hard to hold your head up in response to another force in your body pulling your head forward – such as the front of your neck and chest from an old whiplash injury long forgotten.

To just work on releasing tension in those painful muscle groups will give you welcome relief, but only temporarily. It’s like giving the painful muscles a vacation, but them forcing them back to a job they weren’t designed to do.
RMT’s here at Broadway Wellness enjoy helping you get to the root of pain, and working in a way that will take the uninvited load off your painful neck muscles in a more permanent and structural way.
Your neck pain may require some work releasing the connective tissue in your sternum, and opening up your diaphram – to take the pressure off those over-worked and tired muscles you experience, generally, as neck pain.
The manual therapy offered by an educated RMT can be a highly effective tool in moving you through and out the other side of your neck pain.