Reduce Arthritis Neck Pain
Posted: Thursday, February 11, 2010
by Doc Tel Boy
Back Trouble UK
Arthritis of the Neck is a chronic and inflammatory disease of the discs and the bones in the neck.
It often presents merely as a neck pain, but if left untreated, it begins to aggravate and degenerate over time.
Neck arthritis is mainly caused by three major types of arthritis that might affect the neck: rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and post-traumatic arthritis.
Osteoarthritis is the most common arthritis affecting the neck and gradually leads to degeneration of the cartilage.
It occurs due to wear and tear of the joints between the bones. Post-traumatic arthritis is caused by repeated stress like falls in contact sports or injury to the neck, leading to multiple hyperextensions and hyperflexions of the neck. This can develop years after the injury.
Arthritis is also heredity. The presence of certain genes can risk a person to develop neck arthritis. People after the age of 40 years are more prone to suffer from neck arthritis, because with age the healing ability decreases.
Men develop neck arthritis more often than the pre-menopausal women, but the risk of neck arthritis increases in women after the menopause. Any prior neck injury can also be one of the reason for developing neck arthritis.
Signs and Symptoms of Neck Arthritis
The most common signs of neck arthritis are pain and stiffness in the neck. These signs may worsen by standing as opposed to lying down due to the force of gravity on the spine.
Sleeping can also aggravates the symptoms, as while sleeping the muscles are relaxed and are not able to provide extra support to the spine. The patients may also suffer from some neurological signs like weakness, tingling, numbness and severe pains down the arms, forearms and hand.
Headache is another symptom, usually experienced towards the back of the head. The patients may also experience dizziness, spinning, or loss of balance during the advanced stages of the disease due to decreased blood supply to the brain.
Treatment for Neck Arthritis
The treatment depends on the severity of the symptoms and the underlying causes that are identified.
In most of the cases, neck arthritis responds well to exercises, but make sure the exercises are prescribed by a GP or registered Physical Therapist. Wearing a collar bone at night when the muscles of the neck relax and are not supporting the spinal structures will give extra support to the neck and relieve some of the inflammation.
An anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritis diet can also be helpful in treating the symptoms. Heat, massage, ice and exercises are usually sufficient to treat simple cases of neck arthritis.
Other treatments for neck arthritis include trigger point injections, where the aesthetic is injected into a painful muscular band in the neck. For patients suffering from chronic neck pain, radiofrequency neurotomy may be performed. Some other medications for the treatment of neck arthritis include Tylenol and Advil which should be taken under the supervision of the physician.
Reducing Your Arthritis Neck Pain
Arthritis neck pain can be reduced if you are willing to make some effort on your part. Doing nothing will not help the situation, in fact, it can make it worse. Statistics tell us that sedentary people are more likely to suffer from arthritis than their active counterparts.
1.Reduce arthritis neck pain the first thing you can do is stop doing nothing and do something. However, you can't just do whatever you want either. There are specific exercises or physical therapies that help get range of motion back and relieve stiffness and pain.
Make an appointment with a physical therapist and learn how to do the exercises properly then do them at home as the therapist specifies.
2.Use hydrotherapy, which is a combination of water, heat and air. It's amazing what a good hot tub will do to relieve arthritis neck pain. The water reduces body weight to almost nothing taking off pressure and the action of the air and water work together to massage it.
Ask your GP about hydrotherapy and what water temperature is best for your particular needs. Many arthritis sufferers use it to exercise in as well, since the body and muscles are warmed up and ready to go.
3.Do posture exercises along with physical therapy exercises. A set of exercise bands and an exercise ball is all you need. Poor posture can aggravate arthritis neck pain. You-tube has videos of posture exercises that you can watch and learn from or even follow along if you like.
Get rid of stress of any kind. Stress creates tension and causes pain of all sorts including arthritis. Relaxation is a key factor. What's relaxing to one person may not relax another. So, you will need to decide what works best for you.
4.Massage therapy will also relieve arthritis neck pain by increasing circulation, flexibility and mobility. It also meets the criteria for relaxation and relieves stiffness. Osteopaths and Chiropractors use it frequently on arthritis patients.
Try alternative health care. Homeopathy and Acupuncture are a couple of alternative methods used for arthritis pain. Many people are relieved of pain and sometimes cured depending on the type of arthritis and how advanced it is.
5.Finally, many types of pain killers are used to manage arthritis neck pain. However, they should really be a last resort or not used more than needed since they can and do have side effects. It's possible to end up worse than ever if these drugs are abused.
This Article has been viewed 526 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.