"I woke up this morning with a bad pain in my neck, which I think is a kink. Any time I turn to the left, it hurts. I was wondering anyways to heal this kink. How long does it take before it will go away?"
This is the topic of todays blog because I hear a question like this almost regularly. Essentially a lot of people call it a kink in the neck, what it really is, is a neck strain. It is sort of like a kink in a hose; it's knotted up and no flow of water happens.
In this case the neck muscles are bound up and vertebrae are shifted. These things put pressure on nerves and restrict messages of your nervous system. The severity of the neck kink may vary, and this may determine how much pain you have in the neck or how long you've been having neck pains.
Here are few things that you can do easily to get a kink out of your neck.
- Use a hot pack on your cervical spine and upper back area for 10 minutes. Hot Packs Specifically for neck pain, try a 9x16 hot pack (one that covers the upper back in addition to the neck)
- Do some neck exercises that involve flexion, extension, lateral flexion, rotation of the neck: Neck Exercises
- Use a supportive neck pillow at night so that you are sleeping with good neck posture to avoid a kink in the neck in the first place
- Try stretching your neck. You can simply use a neck traction device such as a trac collar for linear traction (up and down) or a more sophisticated traction unit such as the Posture Pump.Stretching out your neck muscles and ligaments can help with pain relief. It is important to do neck traction under the supervision of a health professional.
- Try chiropractic treatment. A chiropractor can look for misalignments in the neck, and help with gentle mobilization of the individual neck bones. Also, a chiropractor can do therapy in the office, such as ice/heat, electric muscle stimulation, do traction and show you neck exercises that you can do at home.
Picture Source: Comics by Brad
Updated: 4/27/2020
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