Neck Pain
Neck pain is as common as low back pain. The top seven vertebrae are called the ‘cervical spine’ and the structures that commonly cause neck pain are joints, discs, ligaments and muscles, usually in combination.
Once the painful tissues have been correctly identified, the clinician can decide upon the best treatment options. These options include:
- Osteopathic Manipulations
- Joint Mobilisations
- Acupuncture
- Pilates core stability exercises
- Soft tissue Techniques
- Ultrasound
- Neck Traction
Neck pain has several common causes. A whiplash Injury is often the result of a road traffic accident or a fall. The mechanism of injury is a sudden forward flexion movement of the neck followed by a sudden backward movement (extension). Murphy Physiotherapy treats many whiplash patients and often prepares medico-legal reports for insurance purposes. We are happy to liaise with your Insurance Company and, on request, can provide a copy of your physiotherapy notes (once you have signed a consent form to this effect).
Equally, neck pain can be of slow or insidious onset. If you drive or work on computers for long periods of time, you may have adopted the physical postures that lead to neck pain. Sometimes poor neck posture can irritate a nerve root and cause arm pain. We can give you advice about your head position, basic ergonomic advice regarding chair height and for computer users; monitor, mouse and telephone position. Posture changes slowly with time and new postures are difficult to maintain whilst your neck muscle power is still weak. We can show you how to strengthen the appropriate muscles to achieve a good posture.
Many people are unaware that headaches can originate from the neck. These so-called ‘cervicogenic’ headaches have multiple causes and it is important to identify which symptoms are coming from the top three bones in the neck, and which from other areas.. This type of headache, once correctly identified, can often be treated successfully.
Once again, if a problem persists and an MRI scan is indicated, then Murphy Physiotherapy will be happy to organise this for you.
