Why can't I get my neck strain to go away?

S

skh23_16

New member
I have a neck muscle strain, which I've had before and they are usually easily dealt with by rolling up a towel, taping it around my neck, and sleeping on my back on a firm mattress with no pillow.

This recent one is stubborn, however. It seems to get better throughout the day if I hold it in a certain position and wear a soft neck brace. I can feel it healing. But after a night's sleep with the above mentioned technique, it seems to plateau or even get slightly worse, only to begin to heal again throughout the day.
 
Sounds like you've got some arthritis in that neck. That is what happens with arthritis....gets worse when you don't move and then improves as you move again. Time to get some X-rays of the neck to see what is going on with the bones.

May I ask your age? There is a form of arthritis that involves the neck that can be a big problem and it can sneak up on you as you age and you don't even know you have it.

Jenny
 
I really don't think that's it at all. It's definitely a strained muscle. No pain at all unless I flex it. And I've had strained muscles before, so I'm sure that's what it is. I'm doing something to it at night the way I sleep, even though I'm doing everything right as far as I know. Which is my problem.
 
the one bigger thing here is that this actually keeps on occuring for you? that really IS the 'why" that you need to find the much deeper underlying reason for? this just is NOT something that even should keep on happening if everything were actually totally completely 'normal" up there? that IS what you really need to work on finding out first. 'something' just IS actually creating the set up for this over and over again for you(making this area more susceptable). that can easily be many different things when it comes to that neck/c spine area. getting that good c spine series x ray that jenny mentioned would be a really really good idea at this point just in order to actually even finally 'see' anything having to do with the basic spinal structure and the discs themselves? once that gets done, it could reveal a possible structual issue or the need to get even further in depth down to the more inner spinal at the nerve root level and down to your cord area with a good contrasted MRI. there just are alot of different things that can give you the 'feeling' that you actually may have a neck strain within the muscles that are actually stemming from how the actual nerves that RUN to those muscles are firing from something more than strain alone. what simply occurs when anything is inflamming nerves to muscle is they go into whats called the 'guarding' posistion in order to try and 'protect' whatever area within the neck is firing off the signals to them. then it just never actually truely releases until that offending inflammation goes down from whatever just keeps on 'feeding it'? which like i mentioned can realistically be many many possible issues.

unless you are doing something that is creating some serious level of heavy strain upon your neck/c spine area over and over again, this just really would have some level of more underlying cause here that just does need to be found out. trust me here when i say that we really just do NOT have any real clue as to what can even be going on inside of our own bodies til the 'looks' inside with scans and x rays just show them to us or they 'present' themselves with some types of real symptoms.

just seeing your doc first for the x rays and a full neuro exam would simply help alot in that process. do you ever have ANY other symptoms besides the neck pain like ANY numbness anywhere or tingling or anything at all that just is not the 'normal" to actually even feel within that neck on down thru the fingers? just wondering since that can be a real indication of other things. please do see your doc about trying to find the reason for this to even be occuring. and please keep us posted on what you find out too? good luck, FB
 
It's definitely a muscle strain from bad sleeping habits.

The resolution, for anyone who has the same problem: I was doing everything right by sleeping on my back, on a firm mattress, with no pillow, with a rolled up towel under my neck, but the problem was that the 8 hours of inactivity was allowing inflammation to build up so every morning I woke up it was basically starting from scratch.

The solution is to take an anti-inflammatory right before bed, and again sometime in the middle of the night.
 
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