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You know you’ve done something wrong. You may have slept wrong, or helping your friend move their stuff is catching up to you. But whatever happened, your neck is in severe pain. So, you go to your physical therapist. But what can they do to relieve it? What does physical therapy do for neck pain?

One in three individuals is affected by neck pain, whether short-term, acute, long-term, or chronic. Acute pain usually lasts quickly or for a short period and goes away. Chronic pain, nevertheless, comes and stays indefinitely, usually induced by an injury that wasn’t taken care of or an underlying condition.

It’s easy to say that it greatly affects people and can even lead to lifestyle changes. But that doesn’t indicate you need to panic.

One great way to help with neck pain is via physical therapy. But before you can choose if physical therapy is for you, you have first to understand neck pain and its causes.

Causes Of Neck Pain

Neck pain can be induced by many things, like sleeping in an incorrect position at night or not having a supportive pillow that allows your neck and shoulders to relax fully. You can also strain your neck from not having good posture throughout the day.

Another cause of neck pain is injury, including overuse of muscles and strained muscles, like lifting from the back instead of the knees. You also could have something awry with the nerves in the neck.

There is also an injury related to sports or a car accident called whiplash. Whiplash occurs once your head goes through a rapid back-and-forth motion, resulting in severe stiffness and loss of motion.

Another reason could be degenerative diseases that can lead to chronic neck pain, like degenerative disc disease and osteoporosis. You must see your doctor and talk about your symptoms to learn if you have one of these conditions.

This list does not necessarily include all the things that lead to neck pain, as the neck is a fragile body part. You have to look at your symptoms to identify what’s causing your neck pain.

Symptoms of Neck Pain

What does Physical Therapy do for neck pain?

The symptoms of neck pain can differ from person to person, but the most obvious symptom is the various degrees of pain, from a sharp, piercing pain to an overall achy feeling. Other symptoms of neck pain include:

Loss of mobility: It may be hard to move your head from side to side or look up and down.

Soreness: This doesn’t mean you can’t move your neck, but it’s uncomfortable and feels a little tender or tight.

Headaches: Pain in the neck can result in headaches that radiate throughout the skull.

Nerve pain: This pain, also known as radicular pain, is associated with pressure on a nerve in the neck. It often feels like a burning sensation under the skin.

What Does Physical Therapy Do for Neck Pain?

Recent research has reported that physical therapy is a better treatment than pain medication (such as opioid medication) or surgery for relieving many cases of neck pain. Physical therapy treatments can usually help people avoid getting surgery or medication altogether.

Your physical therapist will cooperate with you to design a treatment program that will help speed up your recovery. This program will include treatments and exercises that you can do at home. Physical therapy can allow you to return to your normal activities and lifestyle.

The time it takes to heal each condition differs, but an individualized physical therapy program can be efficient and effective and help heal neck pain in weeks.

Your physical therapist might advise you to:

  • Rest the painful spot by avoiding activities that cause worsening symptoms in the arms or neck.
  • Stay active around your home, avoid prolonged bed rest, and take quick walks several times daily. Movement will decrease stiffness and pain and help you feel better.
  • Conduct the simple neck movements they will teach you. These can help lessen pain and stiffness and return to normal neck motion.
  • Put ice packs or moist heat on the affected spot for 15 to 20 minutes every 2 hours.
  • Sit in firm chairs. Soft couches and easy chairs might make your problems worse.
  • Consult a physician for more services, such as medication or medical tests.

What are the Goals of Physical Therapy for Neck Pain?

The physical therapist will partner with you to:

Reduce Pain And Other Symptoms

The physical therapist will help you understand how to modify or avoid the activities that induced the injury so healing can begin

The physical therapist will help you understand how to modify or avoid the activities that induced the injury so healing can begin. They may use different treatments and technologies to control and reduce pain and symptoms. These might include gentle hands-on techniques, called manual therapy, that they will perform for you; specific neck movements that you’ll be taught to perform yourself; and the use of technologies, like electrical stimulation or traction, as required. Physical therapists examine each individually to determine what approach will help lessen pain.

Avoid Surgery

In most instances, a physical therapist can create an individualized treatment program to help alleviate neck pain—even severe radiculopathy (pain that travels from your neck down into your arm or hand)—to help people with neck pain avoid surgery. In rare cases, radiculopathy needs surgery to relieve its cause.

Improve Posture

If your physical therapist learns that poor posture has contributed to your neck pain, they will teach you how to rectify your posture so healing can happen.

Improve Motion

Your physical therapist will select specific treatments and activities to help restore normal movement in stiff joints. These may include “passive” motions that the physical therapist performs to move your spine or active exercises and stretches you do yourself. You can use these motions at home, in your workplace, and before sports activities to help speed up healing and pain relief.

Improve Flexibility

Your physical therapist will check if any muscles are tight and teach you mild stretching exercises you can do at home. They may also supervise your performance of special stretches during physical therapy treatments.

Improve Strength

If your physical therapist discovers any weak or injured muscles, they will choose and teach you the correct exercises to gently restore your agility and strength. For neck pain, “core stabilization or strengthening” is typically used to restore the coordination and strength of muscles around your spine.

Improve endurance. Restoring muscular endurance is vital for people with neck pain. Your physical therapist will create a program of activities to help you restore the endurance you had before the neck pain began.

Learn a Home Program

Your physical therapist will teach you stretching, strengthening, and pain-reduction exercises to perform at home. These exercises will be personalized to your needs. If you do them as your physical therapist prescribes, you can speed up your recovery.

Return to Activities

Your physical therapist will discuss and use the activity levels to set your sport, work, and home-life recovery goals. Your treatment program will allow you to reach your goals in the quickest, safest, and most effective way possible. For spine issues like neck pain, your physical therapist may teach you the correct ways to lift objects (called “body mechanics”) that will enable you to protect your spine from further injury.

As your neck pain improves, it will be crucial for you to continue your new posture and movement habits to keep the neck healthy and pain-free.

Types of Treatment for Neck Pain

Here’s what to expect from the two phases of physical therapy: Passive and Active.

Types of Passive Physical Therapy

Passive therapy modalities are typically used immediately before active physical therapy modalities. Passive therapy works on the body without requiring motion. Passive modalities include:

Heat and cold

Ice or cold packs can reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation. Heat packs can increase blood flow and loosen stiffness in your neck. Your doctor might recommend alternating the two methods based on your specific symptoms at any given time.

Massage

Massaging the back of the head, nape of the neck, and upper shoulder and back can help reduce neck pain and stiffness. Massage loosens muscles and makes it easier to turn the head in either direction, so it’s a good modality to use before physical exercises.

Electrotherapy

Passive therapy modalities are typically used immediately before active physical therapy modalities

A mild electrical current can be delivered through wires attached topically to the painful area of your neck. These signals can stimulate muscle reactions and help absorption of pain relief creams through the skin. A TENS otherwise called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation unit sends electrical pulses to sensory nerves under your skin. This disrupts and alters pain signals so that your brain receives more pleasurable signals (buzzing or warmth instead of shooting pain).

Ultrasound

A handheld device can also relax muscles and relieve pain by sending high-energy soundwaves deep into the neck tissues. Your doctor will put a cool gel on your neck and then guide the device across the surface of your skin. You’ll feel relaxed and might experience a warm sensation.  

Types of Active Physical Therapy

When treating neck pain, the primary focus of physical therapy is to improve the neck’s strength. Active exercises work the neck and surrounding muscles, strengthening them and increasing flexibility.

Chin tuck

The chin tuck helps gently stretch the muscles at the back of the neck, restoring motion to the neck and reducing pain associated with tightness and stiffness. Keep your face level and stare straight ahead, then draw your chin straight back toward your neck. You’ll feel a slight pull on the back of your neck.

Neck roll

Rolling your neck on your spine can help relax the entire circumference of your neck and allow smoother, pain-free movement. Your doctor will help you safely and slowly roll your head forward to look down, to the side, back to look at the ceiling, and over to the other side before returning to a normal upright position.

Head tilt and turn

This neck exercise involves tilting your head so one ear nears your shoulder, slowly returning to an upright position, and tilting the other way. Your doctor may also ask you to turn your head slowly as far as you can to look to your left, then hold for a few seconds before turning the other way to look right.

Other exercises

If indicated, your physical therapy team may also recommend core exercises and aerobic activity. Additionally, they may suggest upper body motions to help loosen muscle groups connected to your neck.

A complete physical therapy session should take at least 45 minutes. When you’re done, you can resume your daily activities with no downtime.

How Effective Is Physical Therapy?

Current studies and major research have found that physical therapy helps reduce neck pain, improve muscle strength, and prevent further injury

Current studies and major research have found that physical therapy helps reduce neck pain, improve muscle strength, and prevent further injury. This is evidenced by thousands of people reporting immediate and long-term neck pain relief after receiving physical therapy treatment. The effectiveness of physical therapy is even further increased when it extends to other modes of treatment.

Now that you understand how physical therapy can effectively relieve neck pain, you might be looking for a physical therapist. Here at Precision Sports Physical Therapy, we have years of experience helping patients gain back their mobility and alleviate their pain. Please reach out to us today.

Precision Sports Physical Therapy is committed to helping you increase your quality of life by being the best version of yourself.

Services

Injury Recovery

Manual Therapy

Strength And Conditioning

Functional Movement Screening

Sports-Specific-Rehab and Training

Return to Sports Training

Precision Sports Physical Therapy is committed to helping you increase your quality of life by being the best version of yourself.

Services

Injury Recovery

Manual Therapy

Strength And Conditioning

Functional Movement Screening

Sports-Specific-Rehab and Training

Return to Sports Training