Our team of internationally experienced osteopaths can take care of your back neck pain and help give you the pain-free life you want sooner.  Have a read of the features of neck pain below- knowledge is your first defence!

Neck Pain

If you really want to know how your neck feels go find a bowling ball and sit it on top of an upturned packet of Tim Tams. That’s pretty much how your neck bones, all 7 of them, feel on a regular basis. The first neck bone in contact with the skull is called “The Atlas”, and if you’re familiar with Greek Mythology then you know why. Everyone else- google it!

Your head is an astonishingly large object relative to the delicate structures that support it. In fact, the human head weight is around 6kg, so it doesn’t take much imagination to conceive why on earth most of us feel tense and occasionally sore in the neck.

Some of the more common conditions seen from this mechanical David v’s Goliath include degenerative disc disease, pinched nerves, neck strain, herniated disc and whiplash.

There are also other more serious causes of neck pain that aren’t necessarily caused by the weight of the head; these include; virus infection causing lymph gland swelling and rare infections such as osteomyelitis and meningitis.

Some other conditions also directly affect the muscles of the neck, including fibromyalgia and polymyalgia rheumatica.

What does neck pain feel like? And don’t say- “a pain in the neck”!

Obviously neck pain is felt in the neck but there are a few characteristics of the pain you may be feeling that you might not think would be coming from your neck. Your pain may include some or a few of the following features:

General pain located in the neck area, as well as stiffness in the neck muscles.

The pain may radiate down to the shoulder or between the shoulder blades.

It may also radiate out into the arm, the hand or up into the head, causing a one-sided or double-sided headache.

The muscles in the neck are tense, sore and feel hard to the touch.

Acute pain can give rise to abnormal neck posture in which the head is forced to turn to one side. This condition is known as torticollis.

The pain at the base of the skull may be accompanied by a feeling of weakness in the shoulders and arms.

There may be a prickly or tingling sensation in the arms and fingers.

Danger signals associated with neck pain

In some cases, neck pain may be a symptom of meningitis. This is a medical emergency and time is a factor.

If any of the the following symptoms occur seek emergency medical attention urgently.

A rash develops that doesn’t fade when you press it with a glass tumbler or a finger.

The patient feels ill or is running a fever, as well as feeling neck pain.

It’s so painful to bend the neck forward that the patient can’t put their chin on their chest.

Light hurts the eyes.

Neck pain is accompanied by severe headache or continuous vomiting.

Neck pain is accompanied by severe pain in the back.

In some cases, neck pain can be a symptom of head injury or disc trouble in the neck so;

If any of the following symptoms occur seek medical attention urgently.

Neck pain is the result of a recent head injury and the person is becoming drowsy, confused or is vomiting.

Neck pain is accompanied by headache.

If there’s pain behind one eye.

Vision, hearing, taste or balance are affected.

Severe vomiting.

The muscle power in arms or legs is reduced.

How is neck pain diagnosis made?

In most cases, a neck problem can be diagnosed by carrying out a thorough examination that may include all or some of the following:

testing the movement of the neck

testing for trapped nerves

examination of the muscles

examination of the movement of the joints of the spine, neck and hands

X-rays, scans or blood tests may be necessary to make a precise diagnosis.

How is neck pain treated?

For short-term problems, manual treatment (osteopathy) and pain-relieving medicine are recommended.

With longer-term pain (ie three months or more) there’s the following choice of treatment:

osteopath treatment

intensive muscle training

advice on posture and the use of a supportive pillow

acupuncture provides relief for significant numbers of people with chronic neck and shoulder pain.

You don’t have to live with Neck Pain.

Please contact us, we want to help you.

ph 1300 321 300

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Osteoporosis & Osteopathy: a homonym of sorts. The short answer is the former is a disease of bone and the latter is a hands-on treatment for muscle, skeletal and spinal problems! I know most of you know this and I’m only really joking. But as my wonderful Gran used to say; “many a true word was spoken in jest!”

Further differentiation…

Osteoporosis is a disease of bone mineral density and has haunted women since the dawn of history. Egyptian mummies from 4,000 years ago have been found with the telltale dowager’s hump. Most young women today can expect to spend their old age standing as straight and tall as they ever were, thanks to recent dramatic improvements in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of osteoporosis.

Osteopathy, on the other hand is a system of manual medicine and was founded in 1874, by Andrew Taylor Still MD DO (1828-1917), a medical doctor living on the Missouri frontier. He discovered the significance of living anatomy in health and disease and realised that optimal health is possible only when all of the tissues and cells of the body function together in harmonious motion.

He reasoned that disease could have its origins in slight anatomical deviation from normal. He then proved he could restore health by treating the body with his hands, naming his innovative approach to restoring health: Osteopathy. From Greek; “osteo” meaning bone, and “pathos” disease. While we’re on the subject of Greek etymology; “chiros” means hand- hence chiropractor.

Andrew Still understood that the human body is composed of many parts, all intimately related as a functional whole. More than a hundred years ago, Dr. Still realized that the human being is more than just a physical body. He envisioned a totally new medical system that acknowledges the relationships of the body, mind, emotions and spirit. What a revolutionary!

How to PREVENT getting it in the first place!

And most important to remember: Osteoporosis and Osteopathy are very different!!!

Enjoy the journey!

Anthony Collins

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This sudden return to reasonably high-impact activities is one of the main historical features of this condition’s presentation. Thankfully the Brisbane winters aren’t that harsh which affords us the opportunity to play these sports, and many others, all year round. However, those of you among us who have jumped in the deep-end after a long lay-off may find yourselves with a pain in the elbow- not just when playing these sports, but it can be felt anytime you grip, hold, twist or turn with the elbow or wrist.

Recently I have noticed a change in this historical trend, wherein a number of patients have presented with this condition with no history of playing sport! In these cases what it turned out to be was some other repetitive task that they often performed in their work environment such as: using a MOUSE! How crazy that such a simple and, one would naturally think, very easy task, would end up causing these people months of pain in the elbow. This underscores why it is so important to be ergonomically sound in your work environment.

The underlying cause of this “mouse” injury was to the small muscles of the forearm (the one’s that run from the elbow into the non-palm surface of your hand) whereby they were being repetitively contracted; clicking away many thousands of times throughout the day causing tissue damage and eventual scarring of the muscles near their origin at the elbow!

The frustrating thing about these conditions is that by simply ceasing your involvement with the thing that caused the problem in the first place- WILL NOT translate to immediate pain relief.  In fact, this is a very difficult condition to get under control, even with the appropriate treatment, and months of rehab are not uncommon.

Treatment and Prevention Strategies

If you are considering playing a sport that involves swinging a racquet or bat there are a few strategies that you can employ to decrease your risk of developing this problem.

A gradual increase in your activity level and a focus on proper technique can help prevent these injuries from occurring. Proper warm-up and stretching the forearm muscles also help with prevention and can be a good place to start treatment if you do begin to have pain. Rest, ice and an anti-inflammatory medication help reduce symptoms in the early stages of the injury but have limited effectiveness as the injury progresses.

It was previously thought that pain associated with chronic tendon pain such as tennis elbow, was due to inflammation. However, recent research has shown the tendon to have little, if any inflammation. Instead, repetitive stress on the tendon causes an over-development of scar tissue that effectively weakens the tendon. This is important when you consider the best treatment approach.

The most effective treatment will help stimulate the tendon to remodel itself and get stronger. A type of strengthening exercise called eccentric exercise has been shown to be effective at stimulating tendons to remodel and become stronger, leading to a reduction in pain.

Eccentric exercise involves slowly lowering a weight against resistance so the muscle is engaged while it is lengthening. Our therapists can show you how to perform these exercises.

My own personal approach that has produced some great results in addition to the above would include:

Deep Friction: a hands-on form of soft tissue release that is very effective for breaking up scar tissue that has resulted from chronic irritation of the tendon and can help stimulate remodeling.

Dry-Needling: of trigger points in the forearm and elbow.

Releasing restrictions: in the neck and shoulder to allow for full biomechanical ability of the entire neck, shoulder and arm complex.

In addition to the management strategies above I have found the application of Kinesio-Tape to be useful when playing sports.  This stuff became famous in 2008 when they gave a plane load of it out for free to the athletes at the Beijing Olympic Games.  Since then I’ve seen it applied to a multitude of muscle strains and tendon injuries. They say it works by acting as a second layer of muscle over the injured area. Whatever the exact underlying method by which it works, I’ve had good results with it and patient’s report that they do feel more supported when they use it while playing sports.

Enjoy the journey!

Anthony Collins

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