Stiff neck

I woke up this morning with a stiff neck. I started getting signs that something is giving way after swinging my daughter up in the air yesterday. I didn't regard it as much at the beginning but during the night after waking up every time I needed to turn around - I got the point.

The most common cause of a stiff neck is stressful muscle activity or unhealthy sleeping habits but of course there are all the other frightening causes like spinal trauma, meningitis, disc herniation or arthritis, the scope of this post is too short to cover all those topics. Lets just say if you have any history of falling down a ladder or if you have been in a motor vehicle accident and you are suffering from neck pain - GO TO THE DOCTOR. If you have a stiff neck combined with fever or chest pain - GO TO THE DOCTOR.

In my case the stiff neck was obviously because I moved my neck in a wrong way and I sleep with a really bad pillow - this combination cooked up a great pain in the neck. So what should I do? Well because it started off really bad in the middle of the night I just took a pain killer (Ibuprofen or paracetamol) to take the edge off so that I could get some sleep.

Normally the best thing, I think, for a stiff neck is a long warm shower followed by a short massage with any muscle aching ointment you favor (voltaren gel, tiger balm, po sum on oil, bengay) They all work great. Just make sure you rub them in good and wait for that burning feeling, this means its working. I just keep the place wrapped  in a scarf or anything warm just to keep the blood flowing to the area to allow all the nutrients and inflammatory cells to do their natural healing job. [If you suffer from a more chronic, non muscular problem these methods may not help you]

It usually takes a few days until the neck is fully functional but you should feel slightly better after about 24-48 hours. If it doesn't get any better after a week, I would get it checked by a professional just to be on the safe side.

Just a few more sentences for the holistic point of view. A body that is in pain is trying to tell you something. Try not to "shut him up" completely with NSAIDs (non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs) and pain killers. Try to listen to what the pain is telling you.

• Maybe you are working too hard, pushing your body too hard or resting too little?
• Maybe your sleep is not good enough or deep enough to accommodate your bodies needs.
• What measures can you take to ease up, take it a notch slower?
• Should I start exercising more? Should I change the type of exercise?

Remember to be thankful for the days without pain. I heard an old saying once: "A healthy body doesn't feel its different parts". When we are healthy it seems like everything is working great and we don't feel any discomfort, sometimes we forget how fortunate we really are that everything is working exactly as its supposed to.

While writing these lines I do feel much better then before buts it's not over yet. I think I'll take another shower and rub down before the day ends.