What you might be feeling
We all know the feeling; you wake up with a sore neck, and your whole day gets thrown into doubt. Most of us have had to deal with this at some point in our lives. But how often is too often?
Pain can be felt in different areas within your neck. It may be close to the skull, at the base of your neck and could continue into your upper shoulder region. Waking up with a sore neck can happen weeks, or even months apart. Despite the time elapsed between neck pain, the incidents may still be related to each other.
The good news is, you don’t have to live with the pain. A physiotherapist can help you locate and treat the pain so you can wake up each morning, ache free.
Many factors could be contributing to your strain, but often, it’s how you hold your neck day-to-day that has the most significant impact. Both home and work circumstances could be adding to your neck pain.
If you have a job where you remain seated for long periods, you may develop poor posture that can alter your neck’s alignment. Alternatively, if you have a physical job that requires frequent heavy lifting, you may be putting too much pressure on your neck muscles and joints. When you knock off for the day, do you spend hours crouched over a computer, tablet or phone? These habits will have an impact on neck strain as well.
How a physio can help
If you are experiencing neck pain, we recommend making an appointment to see a physiotherapist or health professional. A physiotherapist will do a thorough assessment to help identify the different factors impacting your neck, come up with a plan to treat the injury, will prescribe exercises to help rehabilitate the injury and come up with a plan to combat those life impacts you can’t control.
While your pain is most likely caused by joints or muscles brought on by environmental factors, you must get recurrent or chronic neck pain checked by a healthcare professional. Neck pain could also be an early sign of osteoarthritis or another, more serious, injury or condition. Your physiotherapist will help you get to the root of the cause and get you feeling better again.
If you’re experiencing neck pain, get in touch with SportsCare for an assessment.