Treat Neck Pain with Acupuncture

Most people don’t normally think you can treat neck pain with acupuncture. And yet, this ancient system is perhaps the most safe and effective method available. If you’re at all like me, I’m just not comfortable having someone snap my neck–ever. Sure, it feels good to have a nice release, but the downside is that within a week you need another adjustment. When I treat neck pain with acupuncture, my patients often get a release, but just as often notice when they’re leaving, that their neck muscles are far more relaxed than when they came in.  And that’s far more important.

Neck pain is something most of us will experience at some point. It’s what happens when you’re the only animal that walks solely on its hind legs. Granted, neck pain is a small price to pay for the privilege of being upright, but that doesn’t help much when you’re in so much pain that you can’t sleep, and are takingTylenol like it’s candy.

What’s Behind my Neck Pain

Neck pain can be the result of a wide range of factors, including wear-and-tear, strains or sprains, or inflammation. Here are some of the most common culprits:

Bad Posture: Bending or hunching forward for prolonged periods can cause strains and sprains (injuries to ligaments) or other dysfunctions. This might happen in front of a computer, while sitting for extended periods in a car or train, or even while talking on the phone. Another common cause of neck problems can be sleeping in an awkward position.

Injuries, trauma and car accidents: Sports related injuries, common falls, auto accidents can all cause acute neck pain.

Stress: Being stressed or anxious can cause the muscles in your back, shoulder and neck to freeze up; sometimes the pain is felt in all three areas, while at other times the pain is localized in a ‘target zone’.  This sort of stress-based neck pain is as ‘real’ as if it had come from a car accident, the simple reason being that when the body is in fight-or-flight mode, muscles lock up and don’t readily ‘unlock’.

Medical Conditions: Arthritis, herniated disks, TMJ and other related conditions may cause chronic pain and stiffness.

Treating Neck Pain with Acupuncture: How Can it Help Me?

1. Acupuncture uses the body’s own electrical energy grid to repair itself. The tiny, hair-thin pins jumpstart the body to start the process of self repair even as they release endorphin, a chemical that is often called the body’s own ‘feel good chemical.” Placing pins in specific areas relaxes muscle, brings arterial blood to the area that is full of nutrients, and moves toxins away from the area so the tissue can start healing itself. If this sounds like magic, let’s just say the body has many, many ways of self-healing that have been with us for many centuries. Of course acupuncture treats all sorts of muscle pain, whether it’s back, joint (knee, elbow, hip) or other forms of inflammation. If you are having problems sleeping due to neck pain, you have many options available to you. Check out this website.

However: some people refuse to have even tiny pins near them. For you, we have another system altogether:

2. Hypnotherapy for Neck Pain can block unwanted pain receptors from going to the brain. This can help with neck pain. How?

• Bad posture: Hypnotherapy can help a person change how they stand or sit so as to better suit their physical needs.
• Acute pain: Hypnosis helps set up pain blockers to replace drug therapy.
• Stress: Hypnosis lowers stress levels and reduces tension on a short and long term basis.

3. Herbal solutions

At Blue Phoenix we prescribe safe Chinese herbs for internal use, and highly effective liniments for topical use. If you’re not sure you want to  treat your neck pain with acupuncture but still want to feel way, way better, contact us. We can help you.