The Truth About Neck Pain

Have you ever woken up feeling like your neck is stuck and incredibly painful, as if tiny, sharp nails are shooting into your neck every time you move?
Many people call us first thing in the morning, describing severe neck pain that seems to come out of nowhere, often joking they must have “slept funny”. But honestly, there’s nothing funny about neck pain.

A wry neck is a sudden or gradual onset of severe neck pain and stiffness/loss of movement. There are two structures that are thought to be involved:

1. The facet joint (small joints on either side of our vertebrae) becomes ‘locked’, causing pain and protective muscle spasms throughout the neck.
   
2. Changes in the disc (cushion between each vertebra) cause inflammation, placing pressure on the stuff around it. This tends to occur more gradually, and symptoms may radiate into the shoulder and arm.

Before you try another half-baked home remedy, take a moment to look at these common missteps and better alternatives that actually target your pain at its source.

Pulling your ear to the same shoulder probably won’t make your neck better. Stretching like this won’t help because the muscle you’re stretching (the trapezius) is already long and weak, so stretching it further is like trying to lengthen something that’s already in a “long-ish” position.

Instead of forcing that awkward stretch, consider these alternatives:

• Lie on a rolled-up towel between your shoulders. 
• Stretch backwards over a chair. 
• (For the adventurous) Get a small human to walk on your back.
• Or simply see a physio who knows how to loosen things up.

Most times, a crick in the neck is related to a stiff upper back. So move it. Open it up. Just don’t leave it to ‘get better on its own’

Don’t bother. For every sales pitch of a pillow company trumpeting that their foam is better than yours, there will be a disappointed customer with 17 pillows at the other end. The truth is that changing your pillow will almost certainly not fix your neck pain.

Focus on a few other strategies instead

• A session with a physio.
• Gentle stretching and movement.
• De-stressing techniques.
• Self-massage using a spiky ball, a tennis ball, or a massage gun.

Instead of banking on pricey pillows that overpromise and underdeliver, try more practical ways to relieve the pain and really tackle your discomfort.

It’s not a bad thing to poke the sore bit of your neck, but if this is all you get, you’re not getting the bigger picture, let alone the root cause. A skilled physio will not only ease your immediate discomfort but also address the root cause by using a blend of techniques. For example, your physio may:

• Combine massage, joint mobilisations, and targeted exercises to relieve pain.
• Aim for symptoms to resolve within 5–7 days (though sometimes they linger up to 2 weeks).
• Assess how other parts of your spine are moving to pinpoint what triggered that wry neck.

Instead, seek out a good physio (BRIGHTSIDE, obviously) who explains the ‘why’ behind your pain while effectively easing your discomfort.

At the end of the day, your neck isn’t going to fix itself with gimmicks and half-baked remedies. Instead, get to the root of the pain with practical, proven methods and a physio who knows what they’re doing.