Neck Pain – Assessed & Treated in Hastings

If you are one of the many Australians who suffers with neck pain, neck ache or neck stiffness, you will be satisfied to learn that our proven Physiotherapy approach may offer the answer you have been searching for.

Neck pain is very common with about one in 10 people having it at any given time.

Problems within the neck may also cause or influence headaches, shoulder pain,  jaw pain, pins and needles in the hands, carpal tunnel syndrome and upper back pain.

Causes

In the traditional, old-fashioned medical view neck pain was nearly always attributed to some sort of structural deformity, structural injury or abnormality. Modern medical research has shown this to be simply untrue in approximately 95% or more of cases. We now know that neck pain is very rarely caused by structural issues, rather it is stress, strain, irritation, and/or inflammation in the neck that leads it to become sensitive and therefore sore. Most commonly the physical trigger for neck pain will involve some sort of change in the demands placed upon the neck in a patient’s day-to-day activity. For example, suddenly changing or adopting a new prolonged posture or dramatically changing your levels of lifting, gardening, sweeping, cleaning, studying…. anything that alters the amount of force your neck is used to tolerating.

Modern medical science has also shown that neck pain is not always caused by physical strain alone, but that it is ‘multifactorial’. That is, many many things can affect whether someone’s neck becomes sore. In addition to obvious physical stress or strain these other factors include emotional stress, immune health, mental health, sleep quantity/quality, general exercise and many more. As well as discussing your physical symptoms and asking detailed questions about your physical activity or physical workload your physiotherapist may ask you about these other areas too.

Examination
After asking detailed questions about your problem your physio will perform a thorough physical examination to help determine causes or contributing factors for your neck pain. Modern medical science has shown that in the vast majority of cases scans, x-rays or images are not required. This is because medical research has shown that even the vast majority of healthy people have abnormalities on their scan. However, your physiotherapist’s thorough examination will also help determine whether scanning is required for your particular problem.

Treatment
Typical physiotherapy treatment for a neck problem would usually involve a combination of hands-on therapy as well as exercises aimed at restoring comfortable normal movement and use of your neck.  Your physiotherapist will discuss the various options with you, and if you have any particular preferences or expectations about the type of treatment you would like to use these can be incorporated too.