Have you ever woken up with really bad neck pain on one side of your neck and trouble turning your head?
This is a condition called acute wry neck. It just happens, sometimes for no good reason. You go to bed ok, and then wake up and can’t move your head. You might even struggle to get your head off the pillow. Often you’ll have a headache as well and pain into the shoulder blade area. It’s intense, and really debilitating. The issue is a sprain of the little joints in the side of your neck (facets joints) and then you get painful inflammation and acute muscle spasm in your body’s attempt to protect itself. Often there is no reason this has occurred.
In today’s blog, I’m going to show you a couple of exercises you can try to start to get you on the road to recovery as fast as possible.
This is a common story and something that happened to me. I woke up and couldn’t even lift my head up without rolling onto my side and holding onto my head with my hands. I did the normal things – took some nurofen, warmed up a hot pack and tried to go to work. I couldn’t even turn my head to check my blind spot while I was driving and the ache in my neck was really distracting at work. Luckily for me, I work with other physios! I booked myself in for treatment. Some manual treatment worked well to ease off my pain and improve my movement. It took a couple of treatments and daily exercises over the week to get back to normal, but would have been far longer had I not had physio!
So, I’m going to show you 2 exercises that can really help with acute wry necks.
The first one is a supported neck rotation. Now you can do this by sitting, in a supported crook lying or lying on your back. Turn your head to the painful stiff side, then using your hands see if you can guide a little bit more movement. We aren’t trying to force the movement, just supporting your head and neck and trying to get as much movement as you can. You want to do this about 5 times or so, but every hour that you are awake.
The second one is a chin tuck. This is drawing your chin inwards to make a double chin, but keeping your eyes and nose level. Hold for a couple of seconds and repeat. This is helping to stretch the muscles and soft tissues that are currently unhappy. It should feel nice and relieving. Do about 5 of these every hour.
Finally – this is an acute condition that we can help with really quickly. Normally a few treatments and you are good to go. Without manual therapy, you will probably still improve, but it will take longer. And, from first hand experience, the sooner you can get rid of a wry neck the better. So next time, you or someone you know wakes up with a wry neck – give us a buzz and we will get you sorted as quickly as possible.
Click on the links below to watch the videos relating to Acute Wry Neck!
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/e_tK2NqNdHg
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jp8WmGfTOFk
