Tension in the front of your neck can block the flow of blood and nerve signals down your arm. Stretching helps. When the nerves and blood vessels are blocked, the symptoms resulting in the arms can be painful. The thoracic outlet is where the neurovascular structures exit to go down the arm. The nerves come […]
Active Isolated Stretching is the best method of stretching I know, especially if you have Trigger Points or hyperactive, tense muscles. Here’s a basic routine for the muscles in the back of your neck. Forward flexion: Sitting up straight, bring your chin in toward your throat and try to tuck it in the notch between […]
There are some self-treatment tips to help reduce posterior neck pain. The most helpful home therapy is Active Isolated Stretching, but you can do some manual work as well. These are suggestions I give my patients in my Neuromuscular Therapy practice near Boston. Using your thumb or a Knobble or one of the tips of […]
When you have pain in the back of your neck, a lot of the discomfort comes from stiffness in the muscles themselves and some comes from Trigger Point referrals. Some of the neck muscles refer pain right to the neck while others refer symptoms away from the neck. Trigger Point analysis can help you understand […]
Imaging and breathing can be powerful tools for pain relief. At first Sukie B. was tense during her neck pain treatments and had trouble letting go. To help her, we worked on breathwork and imaging. She had learned in her Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class about using the breath to reduce stress. I taught […]
Treatment of posterior neck pain in my Boston area Neuromuscular Therapy center always begins with the suboccipitals. For anatomical drawings of the muscles in the following treatment protocol, refer to Neck pain: Understanding the posterior muscles. To treat the suboccipitals, pressure is held for 8-12 seconds under the skull with fingertips or thumbs to soften […]
The initial evaluation and treatment of neck pain in the case of Sukie B. investigated the causes of her pain by manually examining the muscles usually targeted in these complaints and others suspected to be involved based on her reported symptoms. The attachments of the upper trap at the midline of the skull were so […]
Understanding the muscles of the neck, where they are, what they do, where pain refers from each is key to figuring out what’s causing your pain. As a Neuromuscular Therapist in the Boston area, these are the five muscle groups that I find are most often in trouble when you feel pain in the back […]
When a patient presents with neck pain, what are the possible muscular causes and what can help relieve the pain? What was important in the case of Sukie B? Neuromusclular Therapy teaches that there are 6 factors to consider in discovering the reasons why muscles have become dysfunctional. The first is Trigger Points that refer […]
When Sukie B. came into my Neuromuscular Therapy center near her hometown southwest of Boston, her neck pain was chronic and so bad that any kind of exercise hurt. Sometimes it made her nauseous. Even walking with her arms swinging could cause a flare-up. It was becoming a real problem at work. She had taken […]